Successful bidders in January's tendering exercise will have to source at least 60% of their modules from Turkey.

Turkey’s Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources is planning to hold a 1 GW solar tender based on the Renewable Energy Resource Areas (YEKA) model in late January. The tender was originally planned to be held any time now.

According to information given to pv magazine by local consultancy company Icarus Energy, and based on the draft tender rules prepared by the government, half the 1 GW to be allocated will be assigned to the Sanliurfa-Viransehir site in the southeast of the country, 200 MW to the Hatay-Erzin site, in the same region, and 300 MW to the Nigde-Bor location, in central Anatolia, for which a 30 MW/ 90 MWh (AC) Li-ion battery storage project will also be tendered. The sites were identified by the Turkish government in April.

The Turkish government has stipulated selected projects must incorporate a minimum 60% of PV panels manufactured in Turkey. In addition, a minimum cell efficiency of 21% and module efficiency of 18% have been set as minimum standards. Selected projects will have to start commercial operation by January 2024.

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The first, and so far only 1 GW solar tender held by the Turkish government saw a consortium formed by South Korea’s Hanwha Q Cells and local firm Kalyon Enerji the only winner. The offer made by the two companies included construction of a 500 MW vertically integrated solar module factory, which was inaugurated in December. Four bidders qualified and a feed-in tariff of $0.0699 per kWh was set.

The YEKA model, initially conceived for wind power and included in solar only since last year, has thus far seen poor results in terms of deployed solar. Currently, most of Turkey’s operational PV capacity is represented by “unlicensed” projects that do not exceed 1 MW in size.