North East motor manufacturer Nissan is set to treble the amount of renewable energy it generates at its Nissan Sunderland plant through the creation of a new solar farm.
The Leaf and Qashqai maker first began integrating renewable energy sources at its Wearside site 16 years ago when it installed 10 turbines producing 6.6MW power. It added a solar farm generating 4.75MW five years ago.
Now the firm is looking to complement its existing wind turbines and solar farm with a 20MW solar farm extension, marking a further step in its path to carbon neutrality.
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If approved, the 37,000-panel extension would result in 20% of the plant’s energy coming from all onsite renewables, enough to build every single zero-emission Nissan LEAF sold in Europe.
The proposals are to be shared with the local community this week, ahead of a formal planning application being submitted.
Alan Johnson, vice president manufacturing at Nissan Sunderland, said: “Renewables have already made a big difference to our business and we continue to look for ways to make the manufacturing process more sustainable.
“As our products made in Sunderland become increasingly electrified, our manufacturing operations are an important part of the ecosystem that will take us to carbon neutrality.”
The solar farm is being developed and installed by partner company Engenera, based at Newburn Riverside, in Newcastle.
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The first step in the process is a community consultation which starts this week, with a full planning application expected to follow later this year.
Nissan has set itself the goal to achieve carbon neutrality across the company’s operations and the life cycle of its products by 2050.
As part of this effort, the manufacturer plans for every all-new Nissan vehiclein key markets to be electrified by the early 2030s.
It is also introducing innovations in electrification and manufacturing technology.
Nissan launched Leaf, the world’s first mass-market all-electric vehicle, more than ten years ago and has made more than 180,000 since then.
Nissan says that Leaf owners have prevented 2.5m tonnes of CO2 from entering the atmosphere every year, while covering enough kilometres to drive around the earth 400,000 times.