The project – the first and largest of its kind in Turkey – will be located alongside the 500MW Aşağıkaleköy hydroelectric power plant and is part of a major renewables drive in the country.
Recent figures from the Turkish Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources show that 1.93GW of power was added to the grid during the first nine months of 2020, with official data showing that 99.6 percent of the new capacity was from renewables, including solar. In addition, according to the recent ‘Q2 2020 Global PV Market Outlook’ report from Bloomberg, the annual PV installation in Turkey will be 1.4GW in 2021.
Furthermore, incentives such as monthly net-metering tariff for self-consumption projects and the ability to use the grid as a virtual storage system for large power consumers, means that solar is becoming increasingly popular for industrial and commercial projects. Power plant investors who want to add capacity to their facilities are also favoring solar as a supplementary power source.
FIMER’s chairman, Filippo Carzaniga, said: “It is a privilege to be involved in such a unique and prestigious project. We know that the popularity of solar is increasing in Turkey – particularly as a supplementary power source to increase capacity at existing plants. Turkey provides the perfect conditions for successful solar projects – as well as its naturally high yearly irradiation values, the incentives put in place by its government, coupled by falling technology costs means that solar capacity is projected to rise.”
