Middle East

The Ministry of Electricity is tendering a 30 MW plant, four 50 MW projects, and two much bigger projects, with capacities of 225 MW and 300 MW. The plants are intended to begin commercial operations next year.

The Saudi-owned developer has announced an ambition to have installed 5.8 GW of renewables capacity by 2024 and took a small step in that direction with its 66.7 MW Al Safawi Solar Plant.

The two power companies, who worked together on the 700 MW concentrating solar power phase of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park, have reportedly agreed to develop power generation and desalination projects along the route of China’s new Silk Road.

The first part of the project will see the company connect a 25 MW PV station to a carbon ferrochrome smelter in the free zone. Several more plants could follow, ranging in size from 10 MW to 40 MW.

The French manufacturer and EPC company says it is building a 4.5 MW solar farm in the country as part of a commitment to Cypriot PV in 2019.

The world had more than half a terawatt of PV generation capacity at the end of last year as emerging solar markets picked up the slack caused by Beijing’s subsidy about-turn to the tune of a 20% rise in installations outside China.

Turkey’s unlicensed solar market has been the powerhouse of new PV capacity. Given the unlicensed segment is coming to an end, investors are questioning the prospects of the licensed alternative. pv magazine has tracked the progress and future potential of Turkey’s licensed PV market.

The nation has plans for two ambitious renewable energy tenders but the procurement process is dragging and Lebanese institutions lack experience in designing such schemes. A solution will be provided by Europe.

All the fundamentals are in place for Turkey to be a leading light in solar but an all-too-familiar lack of policy certainty, coupled with a troubled macroeconomic backdrop, mean the nation is still unable to realize its PV potential.

Celebrating its one year anniversary during Solarex, Turkish monitoring and AI startup Solarify is looking to reduce false alarms from utility scale PV projects. Based out of an incubator in Ege University in the coastal city of Izmir, Solarify is on the hunt for international partners.