- The target of the Minister of Energy is in the first phase to provide at least 20,000MW licensing.
- It will take time for EMRA to process the entire backlog of more than 200GW of applications.
The national regulator in Turkey has begun awarding pre-licensing for energy storage facilities paired with wind and solar, with around 20GW expected to be issued over a period of about three years. Pre-licenses were issued for a total of 12 applications, totalling 744MW, by the Energy Market Authority earlier this month, representing an investment value of around US$1.5 billion.
According to remarks by Energy Market Regulation Authority (EMRA) head Mustafa Yilmaz, these are the first selected from 4,369 applications, adding up to about 221,000MW, state-owned news outlet Andolu Agency reported.
The latest announcement is a big step towards establishing a market for large-scale energy storage in the country. Korkut Öztürkmen, a board member at Aksa Energy, one of Turkey’s largest independent power producers (IPPs), said, “The target of the Minister of Energy is in the first phase to provide at least 20,000MW licensing. So in the coming two to three years, Turkey will be a very promising market for storage projects.”
It will take time for EMRA to process the entire backlog of more than 200GW of applications, although there may be some overlapping of projects in that pipeline, but Öztürkmen anticipates that within the next two years, “we will be hearing [about the] kickoff of at least 20,000MW installations”.
“After that, of course, the rest will follow,” Öztürkmen said.