While political unrest continues to simmer in Turkey, elsewhere business continues apace. The country recently invited expressions of interest to participate in a Feed-in-Tariff (FIT) clean energy pricing scheme for solar energy generation projects larger than 1MW. Within a mere five days, 500 applications poured in.
Turkey is better off than many Middle Eastern countries in terms of its energy supply, but the government is still keen to ensure that by 2023, 30 percent of its generation capacity will be derived from clean sources.
Nearly 500 applications were sent to the Turkish Energy Regulatory Authority (EPDK) in the first five days of the application period.
Licensing for this round caps out at 600MW, which means the interest that came, surprisingly, from mostly local, Turkish investors, eclipses the cap by 15 times, PV magazine reports.
One of the applicants Ertug Babatas, business developer at Germany’s Enerparc AG, told the paper that only five percent of the applications received came from foreigners.
And those companies that did submit project proposals are so organized that many of them had pre-arranged financing. This is a good sign for the future of solar energy in Turkey.
“Meanwhile, the Turkish Electricity Transmission Company (TEIAS) is expected to soon publish the list of grid connection points and capacity of all the projects on its website and announce the date, place and time for the tender,” writes PV magazine.
And 30 days later, per the country’s tender regulations, the tendering process will begin. Turkey’s standard FIT is US$0.133/kWh.
While several small and medium-sized solar energy projects have popped up throughout Turkey, this is the first serious effort to transition to a cleaner energy future.
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:: PV Magazine
Image via TEIAS
Author: Tafline Laylin
As a tour leader who led “eco-friendly” camping trips throughout North America, Tafline soon realized that she was instead leaving behind a trail of gas fumes, plastic bottles and Pringles. In fact, wherever she traveled – whether it was Viet Nam or South Africa or England – it became clear how inefficiently the mandate to re-think our consumer culture is reaching the general public. Born in Iran, raised in South Africa and the United States, she currently splits her time between Africa and the Middle East. Tafline can be reached at tafline (at) greenprophet (dot) com.
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