Turkey

Cell supply shortages could kick-start manufacturing activity in India, EV car sales are braced for a fall while still gaining market share and a new date has been set for the world’s biggest solar trade show.

Minister of energy Fatih Dönmez announced the procurement exercise, which is part of a plan to relaunch the nation’s economy during the Covid-19 crisis.

Looking at the various solar power plant mechanisms brought by regulatory changes in 2020, the Turkish PV market is aiming to adopt some exciting new financial and business models.

Portugal set a new coal-free record because of the pandemic as Belgium and Israel moved to help the renewables industry. But there was grim news in Mexico and Turkey, and Bangladeshi clean energy firms have appealed for more assistance.

The energy regulator has suspended part of the licensing process for net metering applications, bringing the country’s PV sector to a halt.

The unfolding effects of the Covid-19 crisis, and fears of a possible second wave, have split analysts trying to guess how the unsubsidized renewables market will emerge as slumping demand continued to distort power markets. pv magazine rounds up the week’s coronavirus developments.

According to the latest figures from the Turkish grid operator, 109 MW of new solar was added in the first quarter, most of it net-metered rooftop systems. The troubled 1 GW national tender originally planned in January 2019, however, has been postponed for a second time, with the government stating the Covid-19 crisis will cause the exercise to be staged next year.

The new regulations state that import duties on solar modules will now be calculated per kilogram rather than by square meter, as they were under the old regulations. This could favor Turkish manufacturers, as high-efficiency modules are generally now heavier than they were a few years ago. Under the previous rules, PV panel imports enjoyed reduced value-added tax rates as yields increased and module sizes remained unchanged.

A French-Turkish research team has created an economic model to optimize scheduling for solar-powered EV charging units. The proposed model suggests that such projects might be more profitable today than at the end of the decade, depending on a wide range of variables.

Turkey’s stuttering economy, shifting PV policy landscape, and the fruitless YEKA tenders have undermined the country’s solar progress, even though it was considered Europe’s most promising market as recently as two years ago. But its rooftops could still bloom if new regulations that will be issued in May manage to make solar attractive to both businesses and households alike.