It is not just Google touting flashy new data centers with solar roofs.
With the huge energy demands of such facilities making solar a no-brainer for keeping bills down, Turkish telecoms company Turkcell has inaugurated a large data center near Ankara. Coming in at TRY2 billion ($348 million), the Çorlu data center is a serious infrastructure investment. Turkcell said it wants to store more data on Turkish soil for data security reasons.
The company said the facility has a rated power consumption of 30 MW with the parking lot roof installation providing 1 MW of solar generation capacity. Turkcell said it already uses ‘portable’ solar arrays for power needs in remote locations which generate around 480 MWh per year.
In a recent update on the Turkish net-metering scheme, Istanbul-based solar installer Solarçatı provided insights into the outlook for the segment. Solarçatı chief executive Utku Korkmaz said he expects net metering policies to make an impact on the commercial market.
Turkey permits commercial and industrial net metering provided array capacity does not exceed the power demand agreement with a utility. “All users can export and sell the generated electricity to the grid at the same tariff price they purchase electricity,” said Korkmaz.
Graphic: Solarçatı
The calculations cited above are based on a net-metered PV system installed in Izmir, without borrowing at a cost of $1,000/kW for residential systems and $700/kW for commercial and industrial systems. Operation and maintenance costs have been factored in.
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