Timothy Heinle, OCI Solar Power's vice president of business development, and Sabah Bayatli, vice president of project development, engineering and operations, stand alongside bifacial solar panels at Alamo 1, the company's first solar farm.California this May as the top U.S. state for utility-scale solar, OCI Solar Power is a driving force in getting the Lone Star State across the finish line.
As it continues to grow, the solar subsidiary owned by the South Korean chemical conglomerate OCI Company Ltd. is also harnessing more than the sun’s power — it is investing in San Antonio’s workforce via awith the Alamo Colleges and Project Quest to train students for jobs in the solar industry. The two OCI Solar Power executives stopped to point out where the company is testing bifacial panels and the now-retired 1-megawatt battery project is located.
As a part of this deal, OCI Ltd. launched Mission Solar in 2015 to manufacture the panels for those solar farms. The plan was that once that contract was complete, the company would be able to stand on its own — and that’s exactly what happened. Mission Solar isWhile the original economic development agreement came to an end in 2022, OCI Solar Power is still collaborating with CPS Energy on multiple projects, Heinle said.
Heinle said Texas should instead be thought of as an energy state, given that it has also long been a leader in wind and solar — thanks in part to OCI Solar Power, he couldn’t help adding. The expanded use of battery storage will also help renewables expand in Texas by allowing wind farms, which generate most of their power at night, to store power that can be discharged during peak demand Heinle said — and batteries don’t have emissions.