Credit: Jaguar Land Rover
Revamp of historic Halewood site to feature 18,000 solar panels as part of project that should cut carbon emissions by 40,000 tonnes
Auto maker Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has today announced plans to invest half-a-billion pounds to transform its Halewood facility on Merseyside as it seeks to electrify all if its brands by 2030.
The revamp is expected to cut 40,000 tonnes of CO2e from the site's industrial footprint by 2031 and further drive JLR's efforts to achieve net zero across its supply chain, products, and operations by 2039.
According to today's update, the project will install 18,000 photovoltaic panels on-site, capable of generating 8,600GWh of electricity and covering 10 per cent of the site's energy demand as part of a wider strategy to deliver over a third of JLR's energy use from self-generated renewables.
JLR will also redeploy thousands of pieces of refurbished equipment primarily originating from its Castle Bromwich site to Halewood, including manufacturing robots, automated vehicles, joining equipment, conveyance, and complete line as well as vehicle calibration facilities. The auto maker said the focus on re-use would lead to savings of more than £16m.
The upgrades come after JLR recently installed solar car parks at the site and gave Halewood's existing paint shop a makeover to include a new hydrogen-enabled boiler, which it claims will cut carbon emissions by 565 tonnes a year.
The steps form part of a decarbonisation strategy that has helped the company cut its operational emissions by just shy of 25 per cent in the last four years.
"At JLR Halewood, we're driving transformation through circular principles: use less, extend the life of what we have, and reuse wherever possible," said Reuben Chorley, JLR's sustainable industrial operations director. "By repurposing equipment from other sites, we're not just cutting costs - we're making smarter, more sustainable choices.
"We're also ramping up energy efficiency and embracing renewables, with exciting plans to integrate hydrogen into our operations. With cutting-edge technology and a highly skilled team, Halewood is set to be a game-changer in our journey to net zero."
JLR also revealed it plans to provide £20m a year to its Future Skills Programme delivered in part through a new training centre at Halewood focused on High Voltage Training to prepare workers for battery assembly.
To date almost 25,000 JLR staff have completed dedicated sustainability training, with over 500 receiving bespoke manufacturing sessions. An in-depth training programme focused on circularity is also due to be rolled out before the end of the year.
The update comes almost a year after JLR has cut the ribbon on a new £250m EV test and development facility in Coventry, as the automaker accelerated plans to launch nine pure electric luxury car models by 2030. The company has also been lined up as one of the first customers for a "multi-billion-pound" battery factory in Somerset being built by Tata Group's specialist battery business Agratas.
News of the automaker's planned £500m Halewood revamp coincides with the release of the latest figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), which revealed battery electric, plug-in hybrid, and hybrid production fell by 25.9 per cent last month leading to a fall in electrified vehicles' share of output to 29.6 per cent. However, the slowdown is expected to be reversed in the longer-term as new models come on stream.
The auto trade body confirmed that UK car production fell by just over eight per cent last month, after a number of factories wound down production of key models and began work on retooling production lines to enable more electric vehicle production.
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