Ford Daventry Facility Begins Solar Power Switchover

March 2, 2024 3:03 am

In recent years, Ford has embraced solar power as a cleaner way to generate energy for various facilities around the globe, a list that includes the Ford Otosan Assembly plant in Turkey, Auto Alliance Thailand (AAT), the Cologne Electric Vehicle Center in Germany, the Silverton Assembly plant in South Africa, the Valencia Assembly plant in Spain, the Ford Research & Engineering Center in Michigan, and the Essex Engine plant in Canada, to name just a few. Now, we can add yet another Blue Oval-operated site to that list – the Ford Daventry facility in the UK.

The Ford Daventry facility – which is the home of Ford Britain’s Parts Distribution Center and the Henry Ford Academy dealer training facility – has received a new solar panel array that is a major step in the mission to enable it to run on renewable energy only. With the new array, the site is capable of generating between 15-20 percent of its power from the sun, in fact, which is a significant slice by any measure.

The new solar panel array consists of 1,824 individual panels that churn out as much as one maximum gigawatt hour per year in energy, and cost a total of £1 million ($1.26 million USD) to purchase and install. This also marks the completion of a three-stage solar power program by Ford Britain, including the Dunton Campus and Halewood sites, all of which support the automaker’s EV supply chain.

The electric power unit (EPU) set to be produced at Halewood Plant this year was developed at Dunton and will be stocked for the aftermarket at Daventry. The EPU will also be shipped to vehicle assembly plants to power the Ford E-Transit Custom, E-Tourneo Custom, Transit Courier, Tourneo Courier, Puma Gen-E, and other future all-electric models. At the same time, Ford is aiming to achieve 100 percent carbon-free electricity across its global operations by 2035, using a mixture of solar, wind, nuclear, geothermal, biomass, and hydroelectricity.

We’ll have more on Ford’s facilities from around the world soon, so be sure and subscribe to Ford Authority for non-stop Ford news coverage.

By Brett Foote

Brett's lost track of all the Fords he's owned over the years and how much he's spent modifying them, but his current money pits include an S550 Mustang and 13th gen F-150.