The long awaited, new Electricity Market Law, published on 30 March 2013, introduces a number of new features to Turkey's dynamic electricity market, including the preliminary licence and the incorporation of a new market operator, EPİAŞ. One of the main purposes of this Law is to promote viable projects by supporting "serious investors". To ensure this, the preliminary licence regime was introduced.

A preliminary licence will be granted to those companies intending to carry out generation activities. This preliminary licence corresponds to the pre-construction stage incorporated into generation licences under the previous regime. During the term of this preliminary licence, the licence holder must obtain the necessary permits, approvals and other similar required documentation, including the ownership or usufruct right of the area on which the generation facility is to be installed. Unless these permits are obtained within the preliminary licence term, which cannot be longer than 24 months except as extended by force majeure events, no permanent generation licence may be issued to the preliminary licence holder. The current holders of generation licences who are in their pre-construction stage and/or have not fulfilled their pre-construction stage requirements despite expiration of the pre-construction period will be granted an additional six month period to fulfil their obligations. If they do not complete their obligations in this time frame, their generation licences will be cancelled.

The introduction of a new market operator, EPİAŞ, is also one of the most important elements of the new Electricity Market Law. EPİAŞ, once it has been incorporated, will be responsible for the operation of organized wholesale markets and the financial settlement of activities realized in these markets. The establishment of EPİAŞ, which is anticipated to be realized within six months, is a very important step for the creation of an electricity stock market that will help the electricity prices to be more predictable. The markets on which standardized electricity agreements accepted as capital market instruments, and other electricity based derivative products that are to be publicly traded, will be operated by the Borsa İstanbul A.Ş, which is the exchange bringing all of the exchanges currently operating in the market together.

Fully compliant, new secondary legislation for this new Electricity Market Law will be issued within six months.

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