Tata
Motors controlled Jaguar Land Rover has completed the installation of the UK’s
largest rooftop solar panel array at its new Engine Manufacturing Centre at i54
South Staffordshire, said a company press statement.
More
than 21,000 photovoltaic panels, with a capacity of 5.8MW, have been fixed to
the roof of the Engine Manufacturing Centre, with plans to increase this to
over 6.3MW by the end of the year. It is estimated that the system will
generate more than 30pc of the Engine Manufacturing Centre’s energy
requirements. This is the equivalent to the energy needed to power more than
1,600 homes.
The photovoltaic panels will reduce the
plant’s CO2 footprint by over 2,400 tonnes per year. Trevor Leeks, the Engine
Manufacturing Centre’s Operations Director, said, “Our world-class facility
showcases the latest sustainable technologies and innovations. The completion
of the UK’s largest rooftop solar panel installation here at the Engine
Manufacturing Centre is just one example of this. As the first manufacturer to
win the ‘Responsible Business of the Year’ last year, environmental innovation
lies at the heart of Jaguar Land Rover’s business.”
Based
at the heart of the UK, the state-of-the-art Engine Manufacturing Centre is the
first new plant that Jaguar Land Rover has built from the ground up. The site
represents an investment of more than £500 million (Rs 5003 crore) and will
create almost 1400 new jobs by the time the plant reaches full capacity.
The
plant will manufacture the first family of premium, advanced technology
engines, Ingenium, to be entirely designed and built in-house by Jaguar Land
Rover for exclusive use in the company’s future vehicles. The Jaguar XE,
debuting in 2015, will be the first vehicle equipped with these four-cylinder
engines.
Jaguar
Land Rover’s Engine Manufacturing Centre uses cutting-edge heating and lighting
systems designed to minimise energy demand through the use of insulated
cladding, to maximise daylight through the roof design and to harness natural
ventilation through the use of automatic louvers.
Extensive
energy monitoring facilities in the plant continually analyse the amount of
energy being used and identify opportunities to reduce that energy consumption,
for both electricity and natural gas.
Outside
of the building, Jaguar Land Rover plans to create an ecological corridor
across the bottom of its site. The corridor will be designed to encourage the
natural movement of species from one side of the site to the other.