JLR unveils 18MW solar PV plant at Gaydon HQ
The Gaydon installation is one of three UK solar projects JLR is developing as part of its decarbonisation efforts.
Luxury automotive manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has today (20 August) opened a new solar PV power plant at its UK headquarters.
The new solar PV power plant, located at JLR’s head offices in Gaydon, has a generation capacity of 18MW, and will be able to supply approximately 31% of the site’s energy demand. The ground-mounted installation is spread over 26 hectares of land; JLR states that it has worked to boost biodiversity in the area by planting native wildflowers beneath and between the panels and restoring hedgerows and thus delivered a biodiversity net gain “well above” the mandated level of 10%.
The Gaydon site is one of three UK solar projects JLR is set to complete in the coming months as part of its continuing decarbonisation efforts. Development is also expected to conclude this autumn on a newly expanded rooftop solar PV installation at JLR’s Wolverhampton Electric Propulsion Manufacturing Centre (EPMC). This development will build on a pre-existing solar array on site and will feature over 18,000 panels with a combined capacity of 10.7MW. Once the expansion is completed, it will be capable of generating around 9,512MWh of electricity each year, enough to meet almost 40% of the site’s energy needs.
Finally, next year, JLR will install over 10MW of solar carports at its Halewood manufacturing plant in Merseyside, providing EV charging for employees and visitors via solar walkways covering the main carparks to the site entrances. According to JLR, once completed, this will become the largest solar carport in the UK. This follows a £500 million investment into the Halewood plant in September of last year, which saw the site expanded and refitted to allow for growing EV manufacturing as well as the addition of a rooftop solar PV installation able to power around 10% of the site’s energy demands each year.
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Andrea Debbane, chief sustainability officer at JLR, stated that decarbonisation efforts such as these are important for the company as “they directly reduce our global operational emissions and help move us closer to our net zero goal, whilst delivering tangible value today and for the long‑term”. She added that the move to grow the company’s self-generated renewable energy resources is part of the firm’s “strategic shift to gain greater control over our energy mix against a backdrop of uncertainty”.
Other automotive manufacturers are also considering the benefits of solar PV power plants as they work towards their decarbonisation goals. In January, Ford Motor Company commissioned a 5.2MWp solar PV array at its Dunton Campus, the firm’s largest UK-based research and development facility. The array will supply approximately 10% of the annual 55,000MWh electricity demand on the campus. Prior to this, Ford Motor Company had previously developed a solar PV power plant at its Daventry site, and a Ford factory manufacturing gearboxes, located on the same site as JLR’s Halewood facility, is expected to have a solar PV array installed by the end of this year.
Original source: Solarpowerportal
