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Renewable Energy News

TUESDAY 07 JUNE, 2011 |

Toyota UK Installing 17,000 Solar Panels

by Energy Matters

Last week it was Renault, this week it's Toyota in the UK announcing plans to harvest energy from the sun with a major solar panel array to help power its manufacturing facilities.

The solar farm, to be constructed by British Gas New Energy, will cover 90,000m2 of industrial land and be comprised of approximately 17,000 solar panels. The facility is expected to generate 4,600,000 kWh of electricity a year and avoid 2,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions annually.

Enough electricity will be produced by the solar power generation plant to to build approximately 7,000 cars a year at the Derbyshire factory.

The project is part of Toyota’s 'Sustainable Plant' initiative in which manufacturing operations are "designed to work in harmony with their local community and surrounding environment."

"Generating solar power on-site to supply electricity to the plant underlines our commitment to do even more to further reduce our carbon footprint and is yet another example of our environmental leadership," said Tony Walker, Toyota Manufacturing UK Deputy Managing Director.

The Derbyshire plant isn't the first of Toyota's to join the solar power revolution. A 2 megawatt photovoltaic generation system is already operational at the Tsutsumi Plant in Aichi, Toyota City, that generates enough power to supply the electricity needs of nearly 500 households. The array provides on average almost half of the plant’s 5000kWh daily electricity electricity requirements.

Toyota UK joins a growing list of auto manufacturers turning to renewable energy sources to generate clean electricity for their facilities.

Renault announced last week it was commencing construction of a massive 60MW network of rooftop solar arrays for its manufacturing facilities in France, Ford Motor Co. is building a solar farm to generate electricity at its hybrid electric vehicle factory in Michigan and a solar panel array will be constructed at the General Motors Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant.