Green Energy

OCI broke the ground for a massive-scale solar power project in the US.

OCI announced on March 6 that its US subsidiary OCI Solar Power had a groundbreaking ceremony for a 41-megawatt solar power plant in the Blue Wing Road area of South San Antonio, Texas on March 5 (local time). This plant is the first phase of the 400-megawatt solar energy supply agreement signed between OCI and the city’s power utility company CPS Energy in July last year. OCI plans to complete the construction of this plant by the end of this year and supply the clean energy to about 7,000 households in the area.

For this project, OCI has made a consortium partnership with a Spain-based solar tracking system specialist ERCAM and a Germany-based inverter manufacturer KACO. It has completed the project financing from Korea Development Bank (KDB) and Korea Finance Corporation (KoFC).

Under the agreement with CPS Energy for a total of 400-megawatt solar energy development, OCI will carry out five-phased construction works over the four-year period. The entire solar farm is as big as 1,600 football stadiums (about 16.5 million square meters), and it will be built out by 2016. After completed, the power generation facilities will supply solar energy to about 70,000 families in San Antonia and OCI expects this project will generate more than US$ 2.5 billion in sales for 25 years.

“Solar power is our sensible and safe choice for the Earth and our next generations. Beginning with the largest US solar power plant, we will actively explore business opportunities in Canada and Latin America as well as in the US,” said Lee Soo-young, CEO of OCI.

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