Renewable tenders call set for February

Turkey plans to announce new mini Renewable Energy Resources Zone (YEKA) tenders in February, Energy and Natural Resources Minister Fatih Dönmez has said.

The launch of new solar energy tenders in a new form, called mini YEKA tenders, are planned for nearly 40 provinces in Turkey with capacities ranging from 10 to 50 megawatts, according to the minister.

However, before the release of the tenders, a legal amendment for their implementation needs to be enforced, Dönmez explained, adding that discussions on this topic in the Turkish Assembly will be held after which the tenders will be announced in February and held in April or May.

In the country's bid to expand renewable energy deployment, Dönmez said that rooftop solar energy applications with a potential capacity of between 4,000 and 5,000 megawatts will be realized. There has been much interest both from the industrial and residential sectors for rooftop solar, Dönmez said.

"We received applications [for rooftop solar energy] from almost 900 industrial facilities reaching a total amount of more than 800 megawatts."

For households, there is a limit of 10 kilowatts for rooftop applications and we have also received between 1,200 and 1,300 applications, totaling 10 megawatts, he added.

Dönmez also said all energy targets were achieved in 2019, he citing the success in adding 3,600 megawatts of installed electricity capacity.

At the beginning of the 2000s, 30,000 megawatts were installed but in 2019 this reached 91,300 megawatts with the share of local and renewable sources totaling 62 percent, he detailed.