April 2021 – The Turkish Energy Regulatory Authority, EMRA, has amended the Principles and Procedures on the Determination of Power Plant Areas of Electricity Generation Facilities Subject to Pre-License and License in the Electricity Market ("Principles and Procedures") with an amendment published in the Official Gazette on 17 April 2021 and effective as of that date ("Amendment").

Below we provide a summary of the changes introduced by the Amendment to the Procedures and Principles.

Summary of the Amendment

  • Integration of power plant areas: As per the Amendment, all areas covered by power plant units should be integrated together. At the same time, power plant areas cannot be expanded by creating corridors between the areas covered by power plant units. The only exception to this rule is provided for coal-powered power plants; the Amendment regulates that an area falling within the limits of an area licensed for mining operations that are connected to a coal-fired power plant's licensed area through the creation of a corridor can be added to the power plant area of the coal-fired power plant.
  • Storage and generation from ancillary energy resources: The Amendment sets out that areas allocated for ancillary resource units and storage units can be included to the power plant area and can be enshrined in licenses.

Moreover, the limitations on ancillary energy resource units to be integrated to hydroelectric power plants, geothermal power plants and conventional coal-fired power plants provided under the previous wording of the Procedure and Principle have been eliminated, and ancillary resource unit areas are re-regulated by the Amendment.

According to the Amendment, power plant owners willing to integrate ancillary energy resource units to their power plants (i.e., transform an existing power plant to a combined-cycle power plant) may apply to EMRA for EMRA to conduct the necessary procedures (e.g., executing lease agreements, conducting expropriation transactions, allocating Treasury lands) for the right to use over a land parcel to be provided to the power plant owner for such units, as per the Electricity Market License Regulation. If the ancillary resource is solar energy, 15 acres of land for each 1 MW of ancillary resource power can be added to the licensed land as an ancillary resource unit's area, provided that the concerned area is adjacent to the licensed land.

  • Total mechanical power of ancillary resource units: The Amendment provides the principles regarding the unit power of ancillary resource unit. Accordingly, the total mechanical power of an ancillary resource unit that will be integrated into a combined-cycle power plant cannot exceed (i) the total electrical power of the units powered by the main energy resource, if the total electrical power of the units powered by the main energy resource is 50 MW or less, and (ii) the sum of 50 MW and half of the installed electrical power of the main energy resource unit(s) exceeding 50 MW, if total electrical power of the units powered by the main energy resource unit(s) is more than 50 MW. It also provides that the total mechanical power of ancillary resource units cannot exceed a total of 100 MW.
  • Categorisation and main elements of biomass power plants: Biomass power plants using gasification technologies or pyrolysis technologies (with the exception of plants using ancillary products derived from the processing of waste tyres) will be considered as "thermal disposal" power plants, as per the changes introduced by the Amendment. Additionally, biomass power plants using landfill gas as their energy resource will not be required to have the main components required by the Principles and Procedures for biomass power plants using bio-methanisation technologies to have, such as waste acceptance and mechanical separation area, gas cleaning and gas storage area etc.
  • Licensed areas of power plants supplying electricity to industrial facilities: If an industrial facility that consumes electricity from one specific power plant is constructed on several independent areas, the concerned independent areas will be included to the power plant area of the concerned power plant, provided that the consumption facilities connected to the concerned power plant are owned by the same legal person and the generated electricity consumed is provided through the same busbar.

Conclusion

EMRA opened a draft amendment on the Principles and Procedures in February for public consultation, and although the Amendment appears to be mainly in line with the draft, it includes several additional provisions and changes compared to the draft amendment. It is assumed that EMRA took into account the opinions of market actors that it received during the public consultation period. To date no market actor has raised an objection to the changes introduced by the Amendment.

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