Turkey added 672 MW (AC) of PV capacity in 2020

According to official statistics from grid operator TEIAS, the country’s cumulative PV capacity reached 6.66 GW at the end of December.

January 14, 2021 Emiliano Bellini

Image: KLMircea, Flickr

The Turkish grid operator TEIAS has reported that around 672 MW (AC) of new PV systems were connected to the grid in Turkey last year.

Around 154 MW of this new capacity was registered in December alone and brought the country's cumulative installed solar power capacity to 6,667.4 MW. “All installed capacity is based on AC power. Thus, installed DC power might be 15% higher,” the CEO of German company KRC Consulting, Hakki Karacaoglan, told pv magazine.

According to him, however, there is a discrepancy between the numbers published by TEIAS and real installations. “The leaders of the industry report that total installed capacity might be 10-20% higher for 2020. The registrations of lots of installations within the so-called OSBs – industrial zones – might not be reported to TEIAS properly,” he explained.

In 2019, the newly installed PV capacity had reached 932 MW while in 2018, new PV additions had totaled 2.41 GW.

The Turkish PV market is currently being driven by self-consumption and net-metered rooftop PV. Turkey introduced net metering in May and the market has responded by starting to shift away from the megawatt-sized projects which have traditionally dominated.

The Solar Energy Roadmap report published by the Turkish PV association in 2019 predicted the nation could install 38 GW of solar by 2030. A separate study, published by the Istanbul-based Shura Energy Transition Center in May 2018, had predicted solar could pass 20 GW by 2026.

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