OCI Energy Breaks Ground on 347 MWdc Near Houston, With a Fortune 100 Buyer and a December 2027 Start

OCI Energy and Arava Power broke ground on SunRoper Solar on September 1. The 347 MWdc project sits in Wharton County, Texas, about 60 miles southwest of Houston. Power Technology puts the total investment near $394 million. The plant will sell into ERCOT, and commercial operation is set for December 2027. An unnamed Fortune 100 company has already contracted for the output. pv magazine USA reports that the power purchase agreement runs 20 years.

What Is Being Built

The 347 MWdc figure is a direct-current rating for the panel array. It is not the alternating-current rating the grid sees at the point of interconnection. No source published an AC number. The capacity that shows up in ERCOT records will be lower than the headline.

WHC Energy Services holds the EPC contract. The firm works out of Louisiana and across the Texas market. Randel Badeaux, its president of power for North America, said the build runs to completion in 2027.

SunRoper is their third joint project in Texas. The first two are the 270 MW Sunray Solar farm in Uvalde County and the 670 MWdc La Salle Solar facility nearby. La Salle sits about 60 miles northwest of Laredo. pv magazine USA puts the combined Texas pipeline for the two developers at 1.3 GW.

Why It Matters

Houston is one of the largest electricity demand centers in the country. The release names that as the reason for the site. Most ERCOT load-growth arguments point at data centers and industrial electrification. SunRoper answers a different buyer. One Fortune 100 corporate offtaker, not a utility and not a hyperscaler, took the output on a long-term contract.

That changes who pays for new generation in Texas. ERCOT runs no capacity market. A developer therefore builds against merchant revenue or against a signed contract. SunRoper is the second kind. The buyer carries the price risk for 20 years. The lenders got a contracted revenue stream, not a forecast.

The Money Closed Seven Months Ago

The groundbreaking was the visible event. The financing was not new. pv magazine USA reports that the project reached financial close in February 2026, seven months before the ceremonial shovel turn.

ING Capital acted as sole coordinating lead arranger, sole bookrunner and sole green loan coordinator. It will also serve as administrative agent. BHI and Bank of Hapoalim supported the deal. The package combined a construction-to-term loan, a tax equity bridge loan and letters of credit.

The interval is the part worth tracking. December 2027 falls about 15 months past this groundbreaking and about 22 months past financial close. None of this power reaches the grid before the 2027 summer peak. This project is fully financed, fully contracted and already under construction. It still cannot serve the next two Texas summers. That lag is the real constraint behind every ERCOT capacity forecast.

Critical Perspective

The buyer is the load-bearing fact in this deal, and no source names it. A 20-year power purchase agreement with a Fortune 100 company is what let ING Capital underwrite the loan. Readers get the counterparty by implication and nothing else. The release says only “long-term.” pv magazine USA is the single source for the 20-year figure.

The capacity number has a smaller version of the same problem. 347 MWdc describes the panel array. What ERCOT dispatches is the AC rating at the point of interconnection, and no outlet published one. Every story about SunRoper therefore leads with a number that overstates what the grid gets.

The $394 million figure appears in Power Technology and nowhere else in the coverage. No source says whether it covers construction alone or the full development cost.

Then there is the ceremony itself. Financial close came in February 2026. The shovel turned on September 1. A groundbreaking is a communications event that a developer schedules, so it proves nothing about how much steel is in the ground. December 2027 is still the only date that would show the project moved, and no source states where SunRoper sits in the ERCOT interconnection process.

Sources

• OCI Energy, Arava Power and project partners break ground on 347 MWdc SunRoper Solar project (PR Newswire, September 1, 2026)
• OCI Energy and Arava Power break ground on 347 MWdc Texas solar project (pv magazine USA, September 3, 2026)
• Construction begins on 347MWdc SunRoper Solar project in Texas (Power Technology, September 2, 2026)
• 347-MW solar project breaks ground near Houston (Solar Power World, September 2, 2026)

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