The company that bought the old 31,000-acre Alcoa plant in Rockdale announced plans for a 1,200-megawatt natural gas power plant on the site that can support the equivalent of 800,000 homes. The site was an aluminum smelting plant for decades.

The site stretches across Milam and Lee counties and is about 15 miles east of Taylor, where Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. is building a multibillion-dollar chip factory.

Xebec Holdings purchased the land in 2021 for $240 million from Alcoa Corp. Xebec has worked out an arrangement with Sandow Lakes Energy to build a power plant on parts of the property in Lee County. Construction is expected to begin next year to generate power in 2028. Siemens will supply the turbines.

The Austin Business Journal reports, besides the power plant, Xebec’s plans include three dozen buildings of up to 1.25 million square feet each. The entire site could eventually total 30 million to 50 million square feet of logistics space supported by rail and roads.