Turkey enjoys a perfect geographic location for developing solar power plants. Despite Turkey's abundant solar energy potential, there is not even one single electricity generation licensee generating electricity using solar energy in Turkey. 

The Energy Market Regulatory Authority (the "EMRA") has announced, through its decision no. 3842, that it will receive applications for electricity generation licenses for solar energy between 10 and 14 June 2013. The list of information and documents that will be sought by EMRA in the license applications is published on the Official Gazette dated 12 May 2013 and numbered 28645. Additionally an announcement on the license applications for generating electricity using solar power was made on the same Official Gazette by EMRA.  According to the aforementioned decision and the announcement:

  • The established capacity of a single solar power plant cannot exceed 50 MW. 
  • Applications that require establishment of a solar power plant on agriculture land will be automatically rejected.
  • License applicants are required to submit a report related to the areas on which the projected power plants will be established. Only one application for a power plant can be made in relation to one report.
  • An application can be made for maximum of 20,000 square meters (approximately) power plant area for each project consisting of 1 MW. 
  • Applications that do not comply with the lower limit of annual total solar radiation per horizontal surface will not be accepted.
  • Documents regarding the ownership of the area must be submitted to EMRA in case the area is owned by the applicant.
  • A letter of guarantee must be submitted to EMRA. The amount of the letter of guarantee is 10,000 TL times of the established power subject to the application.
  • Applications for already licensed project areas will not be accepted. 

Other than the abovementioned documents, the following documents are required for the license application: 

  • Petition of application
  • Undertaking (as attached to the Electricity Market License Regulation)
  • Certificate of authority for representatives of legal entity
  • Corporation documents of legal entity with all amendments
  • Documents in relation to the generation plant (as listed in the Official Gazette)
  • Document issued by the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock, certifying that the area in question is not in an agricultural area
  • Corporate documents that are listed in the Official Gazette
  • If the production facility will be established in regions which were established with a special law (i.e., organized industrial zone, free zone), a declaration from the related entity must be obtained that there is no inconvenience for the establishment. 

Please note that the abovementioned license application is for preliminary license. 

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