Turkey

With the Turkish government having given Kalyon Enerji another three years to build the 500 MW facility it won a tender to construct with former partner Hanwha Q Cells, Ankara has now committed a $333 million “super incentive” to the fab.

Italian industrial group Maccaferri, the parent company of the insolvent EPC contractor, has also filed for insolvency for another three units of its energy business.

While the world’s biggest solar manufacturers are confident there are plenty of alternative markets for a rising volume of panel exports, the message spelled out by first-quarter shipment figures is that protectionism works.

U.S. President Donald Trump has removed Turkey from the list of developing nations that are exempted from Section 201 tariffs on PV cells and modules.

The government has finally issued a net metering scheme for solar systems not exceeding 10 kW of generation capacity – the country’s first attempt to support small scale PV. New rules for larger, unlicensed projects have also been introduced, with the size limit for eligible systems raised to 5 MW.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has acquired a $100 million stake in a Turkish renewable energy company as part of its ongoing efforts to diversify clean energy in the country away from hydro power.

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.

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.