Turkey's newly released Renewable Energy Strategy for the Energy Transition to 2035 proposes that the country's installed solar and wind capacity will increase to 120GW by 2035, a fourfold increase from the current 30GW. To this end, Turkey's Energy and Natural Resources Minister Alparslan Bayraktar said that at least 7.5-8GW of new renewable energy installations will be needed annually, and more than $80 billion in investment will be deployed.
According to the Ministry of Energy, Turkey's installed renewable energy capacity as of September 2024 included 18.7GW of solar, 12.4GW of wind and 32.2GW of hydropower, making renewables account for 59% of the country's total electricity. Another 69.6GW of projects were approved, including 43.5GW of solar and 26.1GW of wind.
In order to achieve these goals, Turkey plans to tender at least 2GW of installed capacity per year through the National Renewable Energy Resource Zone (YEKA) project. The Energy Department also pledged to shorten the approval process from 48 months to less than two years to accelerate the pace of project construction. In 2024, Turkey will launch a tender for 1.2GW of wind power and 800MW of PV, of which 800MW of PV projects will be put to tender on November 4, 2024. Bayraktar explained that the selected projects will enjoy free market pricing for the first 60 months, with a benchmark price of 4.95 cents per KWH, and will also enjoy procurement security for the next 20 years, with a guarantee that the benchmark price will not be lower. In addition, if the bidding price is as low as the benchmark price, the government will bid for capacity fees separately to enhance the attractiveness of financing.
In terms of equipment manufacturing, Turkey will increase its support for manufacturing ranging from silicon ingots to photovoltaic modules. Since 2014, the number of major equipment manufacturers in Turkey has increased from 9 to 150 by 2024, while the number of suppliers has increased from 18 to 350.
