South Korea’s OCI Company Ltd. made moves into US solar development and the LED industry this week.
OCI Company is already an established producer of high-purity polysilicon–a key raw material in solar PV panels.
Through its Atlanta, Georgia-based chemical and energy holding subsidiary, OCI Enterprises, the company acquired CornerStone Power Development, a utility scale solar power plant development company based in Chicago.
Through the acquisition, OCI Enterprises will form a new operating
entity, OCI Energy, to diversify and enhance its stated global focus on
green energy.
CornerStone Power Development, which currently has 12 projects totaling more than 130 megawatts (MW) in development in the United States and Ontario, Canada, will become OCI Solar Power.
The company expects to have 700 megawatts under development by 2013.
“This acquisition fits with our strategy in North America to diversify into the most promising emerging solar market in the world where we expect solar capacity to grow five fold over the next several years,” said Kirk Milling, president and CEO, OCI Enterprises. “Through this joint partnership, we will be able to deliver the most cost effective technologies to communities seeking to increase their use of renewable resources.”
OCI Enters LED Market
In a separate announcement GT Solar International, Inc. (NASDAQ: SOLR), said it has received a $33.3 million order from OCI Company for its sapphire crystallization furnaces.
The order marks OCI’s entrance into the fast-growing LED industry, and is GT Solar’s first commercial sale of its sapphire crystallization furnaces into the Korea LED market. OCI will use the furnaces to produce high quality sapphire material, the fundamental substrate material used to manufacture a wide range of LED products.
“This is the third order for our sapphire crystallization furnaces in the last two months from leading PV manufacturers that are entering the LED market," said Tom Gutierrez, GT Solar’s president and CEO. "We worked closely with OCI several years ago when they launched their polysilicon production operations helping them to become one of the PV industry’s leading producers of polysilicon. We look forward to working with them again as they enter the high-growth LED industry.”
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