Niigata Power Systems

Niigata Power Systems is the marine propulsion business of Japan's IHI group, whose products are now marketed under the NIIGATA brand by IHI Power Systems Co., Ltd. The company says it is the only manufacturer in the world that designs both main engines and azimuth thrusters in-house without having acquired them.

Its best-known marine product is the Z-Peller, an azimuth thruster built for about 50 years. Z-Pellers provide stable manoeuvring from dead slow to full speed and are used in harbour tugs, offshore support vessels, passenger ships and multipurpose vessels, with a dominant position in the Japanese tug market. The range comprises fixed-pitch models from ZP-09 to ZP-41B (735-2,942 kW) and controllable-pitch models ZP-31CP, ZP-41CP and ZP-52CP (1,618-3,310 kW), all with four-bladed skewed Kaplan-type propellers in Kort nozzles.

The NIIGATA marine line also includes main engines, so that engine and thruster can be supplied by one manufacturer as a single propulsion package.