According to the announcement, the project has a capacity of 11.7 MW and is, therefore, currently the largest PV system to use HIT modules. The so-called Sakura Project was realized in cooperation with Yilsan Yatirim Holding, an investment company based in Turkey for a total of € 15 million.
In the statement, Panasonic claims its HIT (Heterojunction Intrinsic Thin Film) cells produce 27-32% more energy compared to conventional technologies “when the same unit area is taken as reference.” Its modules are also said to boast a temperature coefficient of -0.258%/C.
“We wish to realize many other important projects to use Turkey's potential in renewable energy in the best way possible,” said Tatsuya Kumazawa, Managing Director of Panasonic Eco Solutions Turkey.
The investment was made under the scope of unlicensed investment SOP support. The scheme is not unusual for Turkeys solar PV market, which is Europe’s largest at the moment, with over 2 GW installations in 2017.
Although unlicensed PV projects are still benefiting from a FIT of around US$0.13/kWh, an increase in the grid-fee for solar projects, which rose from 0.0256 TRL /kWh in 2017, to 0.1025 TRL/kWh (around $0.027), may cause a lower level of deployment of solar installations this year.
Turkey may be able to cover over 20% of its power needs with wind and solar by 2026, reaching 40 GW of combined installed capacity, according to the report “Increasing the Share of Renewables in Turkey’s Power System: Options for Transmission Expansion and Flexibility”, which was published by the Shura Energy Transition Center, a Turkish entity founded by the European Climate Foundation (ECF), Germany’s Agora Energiewende and Istanbul Policy Center (IPC) at Sabancı University.
The Turkish market saw large volumes of development over the past two years, due to decreasing costs of PV technology, and to the above-mentioned unlicensed PV projects, which can in theory not exceed 1 MW, but can be combined into bigger solar parks consisting of several 1 MW sub-units.
Turkey is currently aiming to install 5 GW of solar by 2023.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
Are you sure that the FIT of around US$0.13/kWh is still valid?
Hi Younes,
thank you for your comment and interest pv magazine’s articles. Turkey’s FIT for solar PV was set by the YEK-Law in 2013, to be in force between 2016 and 2020. The FIT is fixed in a dollar value to prevent foreign investors from having concerns over ROI with regards to the volatility of the Turkish currency. So current devaluations of the Turkish Lira have no effect on FIT for PV. Therefore, to the best of my knowledge, $0.13/kWh should still be valid.