The OCI has been getting some good results so for this year by securing a huge order for its poly silicon followed by the commencement of the commercial operation of its solar power plant in early January. Industry sources said President Lee Woo-hyun’s perseverance has began to pay off. He didn’t expect the plant to generate profits any time soon, but has continue to work hard.
The company announced the official operation of the power plant, which was completed in November last year, in Namhae, South Gyeongsang Province, in January. The plant is the first to be financed with the Solar Power Plant Fund amounting to 130 billion won through Samsung Asset Management.
The OCI arranged the fund and took care of the construction of the solar power plant on an EPC basis, which will allow the firm to run the plant for 20 years after putting it online. The power plant has the capacity to generate 5200 kw of electricity, enough to supply 1,400 households through the Korea Electric Power Corp’s nationwide power distribution network. The OCI also built a 130 km poly silicon power plant for a small town near the Namhae Power Plant in a bid to solve friction related to the construction of the solar power plants around the country from nearby communities.
Since the company entered the solar power plant business in 2012, it completed 8 kw solar power plants in Goseong, South Gyeongsang Province and Sangju, North Gyeongsang Province, part of its plan to build solar power plants with the capacity of 100 Mw around the country by the end of this year. The OCI announced formally that it signed a contract to supply 357.2 billion won worth of poly silicon to Jinco Solar Power Co. of China, which is equivalent to around 13 percent of the annual sale of solar panels the company recorded last year.
The prices of poly silicon rose sharply of late, the highest since 2015, with Chinese power plant business firms planning to build a number of poly silicon power plants at the same time, helping to boost the operational results of OCI. The OCI will run the production of poly silicon, which is used in solar panels to produce electricity from the sun, as its primary business now that its solar power plants in Knippa, Texas, in the United States, have been sold.
The company said the Alamo 6 Solar Power Plant has a capacity to generate 106-megawatts of power and it was sold for 450.7 million won, along with six other similar solar power plants in the United States included in the Alamo Project to ConEdison Development, which the company had been pushing since 2012. The solar power plants have the capacity to generate 400 Mw of power.
“We will continue to seek additional chances in the solar power plant market.” the company said. President Lee Woo-hyun said the proceeds from the sale of the solar plants will go to strengthening the financial condition of the company and the successful experience will help the OCI be more aggressive in the global solar power market.
The company is wrapping up its four-year long project to build solar plants in the United States on a successful note.
From now on, the OCI is expected to focus on the specialization of poly silicon. The proceeds of the sale of the solar power plant are likely to go to strengthening its plan to take over plants to produce poly silicon, dividing its operation into two sectors, poly silicon and solar power plants.
The OCI jumped into the solar power plant business after taking over a project to build a 400 megawatt solar power plant in Texas in 2012, then the largest such project in the U.S. At the time, the price of poly silicon fluctuated greatly while profits from running solar power plants had been huge.
The Alamo Project involved building solar power plants on a location as large as 1,600 football fields (4,000 acres or 5 million pyeong) at the cost of $1.2 billion.
Under a contract with CPS Energy, the solar power generated from the new plants will be supplied to the energy company for 25 years. Seven more similar solar plants have been completed since 2013, out of which four power pants were. The company retained a 20 percent stake in another plant. OCI will directly run the remaining two plants. The Alamo Project opened the solar energy age in North America. OCI was the first to develop poly silicon in Korea and enter the new recycled energy industry.
The company plans to build more solar power plants overseas, including four in China and more in India, but with much smaller power generation capacities.
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