Solar flair powers up Nissan

Nissan’s Sunderland plant in the UK has fired up a new solar farm as it aims for a zero emission factory.

The farm is made up of 19,000 photo-voltaic panels, which sit alongside 10 existing wind turbines, to generate clean power for the plant.

“Renewable energy is fundamental to Nissan’s vision for Intelligent Mobility,” said Colin Lawther, Nissan’s senior vice president for manufacturing and supply chain management in Europe.

“We have built over 50,000 Nissan Leaf in Europe, and the industry-leading new 250km-range Leaf is now available. With 10 wind turbines already generating energy for our Sunderland plant, this new solar farm will further reduce the environmental impact of Nissan vehicles during their lifecycle.”

The turbines produce 6.6MW of power and the solar farm 4.75MW – the 11.35MW equating to 7% of the plant’s electricity needs – enough to produce a massive 31,374 cars.