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Mission Solar Energy runs a solar panel production facility in San Antonio, Texas, that is viewed as one of the oldest continuously operating panel assembly businesses in the United States, and it could soon secure support from an international manufacturer.
The company has been assembling solar panels domestically since 2014. It belongs to OCI Company, a South Korean chemicals group with interests in solar project development and polysilicon output. OCI created the assembler to provide panels for its own utility-scale developments in Texas. Over time, Mission Solar moved through distribution channels and primarily served the U.S. residential market while making attempts to break into bigger segments. The San Antonio operation is presently listed as having 500 MW of yearly module assembly capacity.
Sam Martens, who serves as Mission Solar’s president, filed testimony as part of the active antidumping and countervailing duty proceeding concerning solar cell imports from India, Indonesia and Laos. Along with restating to the U.S. International Trade Commission the difficulties unfairly priced imports create for the American solar sector, Martens discussed the company’s Texas factories.
Martens said that although the company tried hard to keep its costs competitive, buyers repeatedly informed it that its pricing was too high, and subject producers even quoted figures far beneath what it cost Mission Solar to produce. He explained that the company could not lower prices to that extent and frequently wound up losing the transaction instead. He added that ongoing erosion of sales and revenue compelled the company to scale back output, leaving it with considerable unused capacity.
According to Martens, diminished utilization naturally brought about fewer shifts and a smaller workforce. He stated that the company once had over 200 employees, yet because of market conditions tied to subject imports, only 70 remained by 2025, and it has now halted all manufacturing activity and associated employment on a temporary basis. He cautioned that should injurious subject imports continue without restraint while demand potentially contracts, the domestic industry could again confront mounting closures and widespread job losses.
Mission Solar has not issued any layoff announcements through Texas worker adjustment and retraining notification notices, so if work has been temporarily stopped, the result was probably furloughs. Representatives for Mission Solar could not provide comment on the matter to Solar Power World when asked.
This marks an unfortunate pattern for U.S. solar panel makers that have operated for a long time. Silfab Solar placed workers on furlough in August at its South Carolina manufacturing location because of temporary constraints affecting the availability of certain materials required for production. Heliene dismissed close to 100 workers in August at its Minnesota solar panel assembly plant because of unforeseen business circumstances. Qcells furloughed 1,000 employees at its Georgia operations last year, yet managed to restart production four months afterward.
Mission Solar has for years run a small-output solar panel factory at a mixed-use community situated on the former Brooks Air Force Base. In 2022, the company revealed plans to grow operations to achieve 1 GW of yearly module manufacturing capacity. It constructed a 200,000-sq-ft addition on its property, though the addition was subsequently characterized as a warehouse.
That warehouse was later expected to serve as the launch point for solar cell manufacturing by Mission Solar and OCI, a venture the two companies unveiled in 2025. They intended to put $265 million into the site to ultimately attain 2 GW of yearly cell manufacturing capacity. Martens verified during his ITC testimony that actual construction plans never moved beyond that stage.
The warehouse has returned to relevance following an August filing with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. According to the filing, $15 million will go toward converting the existing warehouse into an Elite Solar factory for manufacturing. Construction should start in October and finish in June 2027.
Elite Solar, a panel brand headquartered in Singapore and formerly called ET Solar, maintains affiliated panel manufacturing operations around the world. Its flagship sites are currently located in Egypt and Indonesia, though it has a long-standing relationship with OCI and is jointly developing a solar wafer production facility in Vietnam. That partnership might be expanding into panel manufacturing in Texas.
Elite Solar declined to comment when Solar Power World inquired about the San Antonio factory plans.
Interactive table based on the Store Companies dataset for this report.
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Who Wins and Why
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Leading Players and Strategic Archetypes
How the Report Was Built
Major US solar manufacturer
Residential & commercial solar
Former Cree LED business
Spin-off from SunPower
Specialty & high-power LEDs
LED technology & solutions
Advanced photonics
Residential solar panels
CIGS solar technology
US & Canadian manufacturing
North American manufacturing
US-made solar panels
US operations of Korean parent
3D architecture LEDs
High-quality lighting
High-brightness microdisplays
Disinfection & purification
US crystalline silicon solar
Next-generation tandem cells
Tandem cell technology
Manufacturing equipment
Turnkey production lines
Distributor & assembler
Residential & commercial
Former Philips business
Specialty & horticultural
Military & commercial
Aluminum nitride substrates
Materials for UV LEDs
US division of Kyocera
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