OCI Sells 120MW Texas Solar Project Rights to Turkish Firm
OCI Energy, a U.S. subsidiary of OCI Holdings specializing in solar projects, has successfully monetized by selling the rights to a 120MW solar power plant. OCI Energy is currently developing 20 solar projects in the United States alone. With the rapid increase in power demand due to the development of the artificial intelligence (AI) industry in the U.S., additional sales of solar projects are expected within the year.
OCI Energy recently announced on July 20 that it has sold the rights to the Pepper Project, a solar power plant in Texas, USA, to Sabanci Renewables, a Turkish energy company. OCI Energy led the initial development of the Pepper Project, including land acquisition, surveys, permitting, and grid connection. Sabanci will be responsible for future plant construction, operation, and management. The commercial operation of the Pepper solar project, which can supply electricity to about 21,000 households annually, is expected to be possible around the third quarter of 2027.
Previously, in August last year, OCI Energy sold the rights to the 260MW Hillsboro Project solar power plant in Texas to Hyundai Engineering. In February this year, it established a joint venture (JV) with Israeli solar company Arava Power to operate the 260MW Sunroper Project in Houston. A company official said, “There is a high possibility that the 100MW Lucky 7 Project in Texas will also be sold in the third quarter.”
Since its establishment in 2012, OCI Energy has been developing solar power plant projects centered in Texas. A total of 20 projects with a scale of 5.2GW are in development or planning stages. The company aims to increase its project scale to 10GW by 2028.
The industry views the outlook for the U.S. solar project business as bright, especially as the Trump 2.0 administration has announced plans to invest $70 billion in AI and energy sectors. Particularly in Texas, OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank’s joint venture Stargate plans to build 10-15 1GW AI data centers by 2030. OCI currently holds the top market share (15%) in solar power generation and development in Texas, and is expected to benefit from the surge in power demand.
OCI Holdings has also announced plans to invest $265 million to build a solar cell production facility with an annual capacity of 2GW in Texas. It plans to start commercial production at 1GW scale in the first half of next year and expand production capacity to 2GW in the second half.
OCI Holdings successfully turned to profit in the first quarter, recording an operating profit of 48.7 billion won. The company explained, “Although we recorded an operating loss in the fourth quarter of last year, our performance improved with the monetization of the Sunroper project and the normal operation of OCI Terasus, our polysilicon subsidiary in Malaysia.”