Wind-power is proving a popular choice for automakers in their quest to curb costs and present an environmentally-aware public face. Nissan has eight turbines at its Sunderland plant, Toyota has one planned for its Flintshire, Wales factory and even Chrysler is investing in a wind project at its Chelsea Proving Grounds in Michigan.

While that may seem like a decent effort they will have to do better than that if they want to match the initiative of Ford at its Dagenham Diesel Center. Already supplied with 100 percent wind-generated electricity for its existing operations, expansion plans for a 1.4/1.6-litre Duratorq TDCi engine line means they're adding a third wind turbine to supply the extra needed power. The new installation will be handled, as before, by Ecotricity and should produce 1.8 megawatts. Check out the press release from Ford for all the details after the jump.

Ford's Dagenham England engine plant is their global source for diesel engines and they've just launched a new engine line to build 1.4L and 1.6L Duratorq TDCi turbo diesel engines. The two new engines are designed to have particularly low carbon dioxide emissions and associated fuel consumption. The 1.6L is already being built and the 1.4L gets added next month. The new engines will be powering the Fiesta, Fusion Focus and C-Max. But American drivers shouldn't get to excited yet about the Fusion. In Europe the Fusion brand adorns a small CUV based on the Fiesta.

The 1.6L in the Fiesta is rated at 116 g/km for CO2 emissions putting it well under the proposed new EU carbon limits. The Dagenham plant builds a variety of other diesels for use in most of the Ford brands along with a 2.7L V-6 that is shared with Peugeot. The biggest engine they build is a 3.6L V-8 used in Land Rovers and this engine is expected to be the basis of the new 4.4L that's coming in the next Ford F-150 in 2009. Now they just need to get some of the four cylinders into our Fusion and Focus.

[Source: Ford]