About 10% of Dunton’s total annual electricity demand, which is 55,000MWh, according to the carmaker, will be met by the solar PV array. Image: Ford.

Ford Motor Company’s UK headquarters has commissioned a 5.2MWp solar PV array that it says could fuel a Ford E-Transit for 14 million miles.

The solar installation, formed of 9,130 panels and 58,000 metres of cabling, is at Ford’s largest automotive research and development (R&D) campus in the UK, the Dunton Campus.

About 10% of Dunton’s total annual electricity demand, which is 55,000MWh, according to the carmaker, will be met by the solar PV array. Previously, Ford has sourced its electricity from certified renewable energy sources, it said.

The Dunton solar farm forms part of Ford’s “Road to Better” initiative, which aims for carbon neutrality across its European operations including facilities, logistics and direct suppliers by 2035. 

The solar power plant was delivered by solutions provider On-Site Energy, which managed the design, procurement, installation, testing and commissioning of the project over nine weeks.

CEO of on-site energy David Kipling commented that “to construct 5.2 MWp of solar panels within nine weeks in a standard solar farm is challenging, but completing it on such a customised site with complex logistics required significant collaboration with Ford.”

Dunton is Ford’s second UK site to integrate solar panels after the site in Daventry, and an additional site at Halewood is set to follow in 2025.

Kevin Clarkson, program coordinator at Ford Land, said: “Energy has always been a substantial part of our operating costs, and its importance has only increased in recent years. Increasing our renewable energy capacity is as critical as the shift to electric mobility.”

EV investments

Ford’s Dunton Campus has seen other investments recently, with £47 million committed to the Advanced Propulsion Laboratory (APL) and the E:PRiME prototype build facility, which Ford says underscore the site’s importance in advancing the carmarker’s electric vehicle (EV) strategy.

Car manufacturers announced over £20 billion worth of investment in 2023 and a further £3.5 billion in 2024 towards revamping factories to support EV manufacturing.

Last year, however, Ford announced it would cut 800 UK jobs, calling the rules of the zero emissions vehicle (ZEV) mandate “unworkable”, despite having pushed for a harsher mandate in 2022 when the quotas first came into focus. The ZEV mandate will see a gradual phasing out of internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles until a complete ban in 2030.

The ZEV mandate threshold for 2025 is for 28% of manufacturers’ sales to be EVs—a target that Ford did not hit. More coverage of car manufacturers’ commitments to the electrification of transport is available on our sister site, Current±.