Turkey to launch 1 GW solar tender in January, include storage at one site – ministry

Turkey’s Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources has announced that a 1 GW solar tender will be launched in January, with a 30 MW/ 90 MWh (AC) storage project to be included at one of the three sites in question, according to reports.

Around 500 MW has been assigned to the Sanliurfa-Viransehir site and 200 MW to the Hatay-Erzin site, both in the south-east of the country.

Around 300MW has been assigned to the Nigde-Bor location, which will also get the battery storage site.

Successful bidders will have to source at least 60% of the modules they use from Turkey and achieve minimum cell efficiency of 21% and module efficiency of 18%.

Selected projects will have to start commercial operation by January 2024.

Currently, most of Turkey’s operational solar capacity is represented by unlicensed projects that are smaller than 1MW in size.

Solar-plus-storage feasibility study commissioned in June

The Turkish energy ministry has hired DNV GL, a Norway-based global quality assurance and risk management firm, to conduct a feasibility study on combined solar and energy storage solutions, seeking to determine whether the integration of energy storage in the future solar auctions has the potential to further cut energy costs, according to a press release from DNV GL in early June.

At the time, DNV GL said it would analyze energy storage technology worldwide over the next three months, to identify specific prequalification and technical specification requirements that can lead to a lower Levelized Energy Cost (LEC) from solar power in Turkey.

Turkey’s strategic target for the production of energy from renewable sources is 30% by 2030, and with these two new projects it aims to reach 5 GW of installed solar capacity by 2023, according to DNV GL’s press release.

In late February, Turkish energy minister Berat Albayrak said the country was preparing to invite bids for two new solar and wind power projects, each with a capacity of 1 GW, according to a report at the time by Turkey’s Anadolu Agency (AA).