Ex-Ford exec shops idea of energy park

A retired Ford Motor Co. executive has started a money hunt to build a renewable-energy business park in West Sacramento with research laboratories at the University of California Davis.

Dennis Schuetzle, a native Sacramentan and former director of international research and technology for Ford, recently founded a nonprofit called the Renewable Energy Institute International. The institute wants to develop an $800 million research and development park spread over the two locations.
He has no financial backing but he does have connections, and his proposal comes as Sacramento-area utility, business, government and academic leaders discuss how to start an energy technology business incubator in the region. The state Energy Commission and the Sacramento Municipal Utility District have funded a study on the subject, with the aim of supporting entrepreneurial firms to commercialize clean-energy technologies.

Schuetzle serves on the incubator project committee, but it’s unclear how the incubator concept and the renewable-energy park proposal might intersect, said people familiar with both ideas.

“There’s a lot of crosstalk among the people involved in both of these activities,” said Mark Henwood, founder of the Sacramento consulting firm Henwood Energy Services Inc. and owner of the renewable-energy company Sigma Group.

MSNBC