Turkey announces new renewable energy subsidies as targets raised

ANKARA/ISTANBUL

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Turkey has announced a series of new subsidies to support renewable energy equipment production, as it raises its renewable energy targets.Renewable energy turbine and generator manufacturing, as well as wind energy production, will be considered “priority investment area” by the Turkish government in order to provide state subsidies, the government stated in the Official Gazette on Nov. 19.Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci said state incentives for renewable energy equipment manufacturing would also be supported through VAT exemptions, other tax exemptions, and non-rate subsidies.“Such investments will benefit from the same attractive incentive rates and time periods as investments in Turkey’s 5th Incentive Region. Investments will therefore be supported for seven years by also benefiting from VAT exemptions, customs tax exemptions, tax reductions, interest rate support, investment site allocation opportunities and easier social security payments,” Zeybekci said in a written statement.He also noted that such incentives would in the long run enable Turkey to slash its energy imports, which make up the lion’s share of the country’s current account gap.Turkey needs to make investments of around $130 billion in the sector to meet its increasing energy demands by 2023, according to officials. Some $33 billion of this amount will be invested in the hydro power sector and $30 billion in wind and solar power technologies.Meanwhile, with existing and planned solar power projects, Turkey will meet some 5 percent of its electricity needs from solar power, Science, Industry and Technology Minister Fikri Işık told state-run Anadolu Agency.Some parts of the Central Anatolian province of Niğde have been announced as a specialized energy industrial zone after the first site of this kind in another Central Anatolian province, Konya, according to a statement in the Official Gazette on Nov. 19.Işık said a solar power field may be established at the site in Niğde with installed power of around 1.400 megawatts (MW).Similar specialized sites are also planned in the Central Anatolian province of Karaman and the eastern province of Van, he also added.Through existing and planned solar power fields, Turkey will eventually meet around 5 percent of its energy needs from solar power, Işık said.