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 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.[3]

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 bureacracy which is meant to ensure the grid can cope.[4]

Turkey has a fair feed in tariff.[5] 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.[6]

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)[7]

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.[8] Chinese companies are investing.[9] Solar power plants are manufactured in Turkey and also a prototype dye-sensitized solar cell production plant is to be set up.[10]

Solar PV deployment in MWp
10
20
30
40
50
60
2008
2010
2012
2014
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.
Source: latest IEA-PVPS,[11] previous[12][13][14][15][16]

Concentrated Solar Power

The Greenway CSP Mersin Solar Tower Plant has an installed power of 5 MW constructed at Mersin by Greenway CSP.[17]

References

External links

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