Solar power in Turkey

Solar potential

Turkey is located in an advantageous position in Europe for solar energy. Compared to the rest of Europe, insolation values are higher and conditions for solar power generation are comparable to Spain. The government is aiming for at least 3 gigawatts (GW) by 2023.[1]

Insolation

Covering one half of one percent of the land area of Turkey with solar panels would be sufficient to generate all of the electricity used.

Policies, laws and incentives

Turkey enacted its second Renewable Energy Law, namely Law No. 6094 Concerning the use of Renewable Energy Resources for the Generation of Electrical Energy, in 2010.[2]

Solar energy sources are covered by this law, which decrees that facilities which generate electricity from renewable energy sources will be granted a renewable energy resources certificate (RER Certificate) which will entitle such facilities to benefit from the incentives provided by the Law. EMRA is the competent authority to grant the RER Certificates.

Systems producing up to 50KW (e.g. residential systems) are more lightly regulated than larger ones. [3]

Systems producing up to 1-megawatt (MW) of energy do not need a license, and plugged into the national grid are eligible for payments of US$0.133 per kilowatt-hour for 10 years.[4]

Systems producing over 1-megawatt (MW) of energy must be licensed, but only if they feed into the grid. Such licences often become mired in the bureaucracy which is meant to ensure the grid can cope.[5] As of May 2015 600MW of these larger installation tenders have been approved. The one off fee per MW varies considerably depending on the result of each tender.

Turkey has a fair feed in tariff.[6] Turkey is already at grid parity for private households and commercial users. In the coming years solar energy will be feasible without any feed-in-tariff mechanism.[7]

Heating and hot water

The main solar energy utilizations in Turkey are the flat-plate collectors in domestic hot water systems. Turkey is one of the leading countries in the world with a total installed capacity of 10 GWth as of 2011 (129 kWth /1,000 inhabitants)[8]

The industry is well developed with high quality manufacturing and export capacity. The number of companies is around 100 and annual manufacturing capacity is 750,000 m².

Photovoltaics

Photovoltaics (PV) are expected to grow dramatically in the next few years.[9] Chinese companies are investing.[10] Solar power plants are manufactured in Turkey and also a prototype dye-sensitized solar cell production plant is to be set up.[11]

Solar PV deployment in MWp
50
100
150
200
250
300
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
Year Added
PV capacity		 Total
(MWp)		 Generated
(GWh)
2008 0.75 4 n.a.
2009 1 5 n.a.
2010 1 6 n.a.
2011 1 7 n.a.
2012 5 12 n.a.
2013 6 18 n.a.
2014 40 58 n.a.
2015 191 249 n.a.
Source: latest IEA-PVPS,[12] previous[13][14][15][16][17]

Concentrated Solar Power

The Greenway CSP Mersin Solar Tower Plant has an installed power of 5 MW constructed at Mersin by Greenway CSP.[18]

See Also

Renewable energy in Turkey

Wind power in Turkey

Geothermal power in Turkey

Biofuel in Turkey

Hydroelectricity in Turkey

Renewable energy by country

References

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