New solar farm switched on at Nissan Sunderland

Nissan has switched on a new solar farm at its biggest manufacturing site in Europe.

Made of up 19,000 photo-voltaic panels, the new 4.75MW facility is now fully operational at Nissan Sunderland Plant.

The solar farm has been installed alongside 10 wind turbines already generating clean power for Nissan in Sunderland, the European centre of production for the all-electric Nissan LEAF and its batteries.

Nissan began integrating renewable energy sources in Sunderland in 2005 when the company installed its first wind turbines on site.

The 10 wind turbines contribute 6.6MW power, with the 4.75MW solar farm bringing the total output of renewables to 11.35MW in Sunderland.

This equates to 7% of the plant's electricity requirements, enough to build the equivalent of 31,374 vehicles.