Images Courtesy Jaguar Land Rover

We previously reported on Jaguar Land Rover’s new Ingenium engine family, slated to begin production in early 2015 at the company’s brand-new Engine Manufacturing Centre in Wolverhampton, UK. The plant officially opened for business this week by the Queen of England, and the £500m  investment is expected to pay big dividends for the company.

With JLR’s focus on green manufacturing a large part of the plant’s construction, the roof is covered by 21,000 solar panels that are designed to provide up to one-third of the plant’s power on sunny days. Additionally, rainwater is collected for processing underneath the plant’s sprawling grounds.

The Ingenium engine family is modular; each of the four cylinders displaces 500cc for a total of 2 liters of displacement, which will find homes in the Jaguar XE BMW fighter and the Land Rover Discovery Sport to start.

Initially, Module 1 is slated to produce the Ingenium diesel engines in 161 and 172 hp versions, and Module 1a – which has not opened as of this writing – will focus on the 2.0L gasoline versions of the engine, which are expected to arrive in 2016.

The facility has been constructed to provide the company some flexibility in manufacturing, with the potential for larger engines and even the ability to incorporate hybrid technology should the company go in the direction with the Ingenium platform.

The Jaguar Land Rover Engine Manufacturing Centre  is directly responsible for the creation of nearly 1,400 new jobs and 5,000 jobs stretching into the further-out supply chain, which will give a nice boost to the UK’s economy.