is located in an advantageous position in the Middle East and Southeast Europe for solar energy. Solar potential is very high in Turkey, especially in the South Eastern Anatolia and Mediterranean provinces. Compared to the rest of the region, insolation values are higher and conditions for solar power generation are comparable to Spain. 7.5 TWh was generated in 2018 which was 2.5% of Turkey's electricity. Installed capacity was 5GW, with the Energy Ministry planning to have another 10GW installed in the 2020s. However solar power in Turkey could increase far more quickly if subsidies for coal were abolished and the auction system was improved.
Insolation
The annual average total insolation duration is 2741 hours.
Average annual solar radiation is 1527 kW·h/ or 4.18 kW·h/.
Covering one half of one percent of the land area of Turkey with solar panels would be sufficient to generate all of the electricity used.
Policies, laws and incentives
Turkey enacted its second Renewable Energy Law, namely Law No. 6094 Concerning the use of Renewable Energy Resources for the Generation of Electrical Energy, in 2010. Turkish government is also encouraging expansion and the utilization of solar energy for electricity generation. To stimulate investment in renewables, various incentive schemes have been introduced For example, renewable energy plants with an installed capacity of 500 kW or less are exempt from licensing obligations Solar energy sources are covered by this law, which decrees that facilities which generate electricity from renewable energy sources will be granted a renewable energy resources certificate which will entitle such facilities to benefit from the incentives provided by the Law. EMRA is the competent authority to grant the RER Certificates. Permission is required from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry before building a solar park. Systems producing up to 50KW are more lightly regulated than larger ones. Systems producing up to 1-megawatt of energy do not need a license, and plugged into the national grid are eligible for payments of US$0.133 per kilowatt-hour for 10 years. Systems producing over 1-megawatt of energy must be licensed, but only if they feed into the grid. Such licences often become mired in the bureaucracy which is meant to ensure the grid can cope. As of May 2015 600MW of these larger installation tenders have been approved. The one off fee per MW varies considerably depending on the result of each tender. In the coming years solar energy will be feasible without any feed-in-tariff mechanism, however as of 2019 smaller tenders and lower interest rates are the key to the expansion of solar power.
Heating and hot water
The main solar energy utilizations in Turkey are the flat-plate collectors in domestic hot water systems. Turkey is one of the leading countries in the world with a total installed capacity of 10 GWth as of 2011 and 15,000 solar water heaters as of 2015. The industry is well developed for hot water with high quality manufacturing and export capacity, but not so much for space heating, and is hampered by subsidies for coal heating.
Photovoltaics
growth is expected to be slow in 2019 due to financing challenges, but pick up again some time in the 2020s. From May 2018 ‘unlicensed’ PV projects can have a generation capacity of up to 5 MW. From 2020 solar cells are planned to be manufactured in Turkey. In 2016 PV produced 3755 TeraJoules, about 1TWh of Turkey's 300TWh annual generation. In 2017 auction prices were around US$0.07 per kWh, and 1 GW is planned to be auctioned in 2020.
There is potential for agrivoltaics with crops such as wheat.
Rooftop small-scale PV
From 2019 the EPDK allowed net metering for homeowners and businesses installing 3-10 kW of PV on rooftops, so they can sell up to half of the electricity they generate to their electricity company, and receive payments equal to the price they pay., the payback period was estimated at 11 years: removal of VAT and the fixed government approval fee and attaching borrowing for installation to the property's mortgage has been suggested to shorten this.
