Green Recycling: Ford To Sell Vacated Factory to Renewable Energy Companies

Green Recycling: Ford To Sell Vacated Factory to Renewable Energy Companies

By John O'Dell September 10, 2009

From energy-sucking Mustang GTs to energy-producing solar panels: Ford Motor Co. says its idled Wixom Assembly Plant about 30 miles northwest of Detroit is being sold to a pair of "green" energy companies.

The tentative deal, announced this afternoon, would see solar system manufacturer Clairvoyant Energy, of Santa Barbara, Calif., and renewable energy storage systems developer Xtreme Power, of Austin, Texas, spend $725 million to refurbish and outfit the 52-year-old plant where Ford build Lincoln Continentals and Ford Thunderbirds and  Mustang GTs.

The two companies will occupy about half the 4.7 million-square-feet of plant space on the 320-acre site and plan to rent or lease the rest to other renewable energy companies. Manufacturing is expected to begin in 2011 after an extensive redevelopment effort.

Terms of the deal, which is still being finalized, weren't announced.

Xtreme Power said it would use about 1 million square feet of space to manufacture power systems that can store energy produced by wind and solar systems; Clairvoyant is expected to use about the same for a solar panel production facility capable of turning out more than 2.5 million panels a year.

The companies said state and local incentives including tax credits for jobs creation, factory renovation, solar system and battery manufacturing and economic redevelopment played an important role in the deal.

Better to spend tax dollars on those items than a few other things we can think of.

John O'Dell:  is an AutoObserver Senior Editor. Follow @AutoObserver on Twitter.