Markets

Turkey Winner Of 1 GW PV Tender From Korea

Hanwha and Kalyon not only won a tender for a 1 GW PV power plant it Turkey, within 21 months they are also scheduled to produce PV equipment in the country. Pictured is a photo from a stand at the IGEM fair in Malaysia last autumn, where Hanwha Q Cells was promoting its Malaysia-made modules.

Anu Bhambhani
  • Hanwha Corp and Kalyon Enerji have won the 1 GW Turkish solar power tender against three competitors
  • Winning tariff proposed by Korean module maker Hanwha and Kalyon from Turkey was $0.0699 cents per kWh
  • Project is estimated to bring in investments exceeding $1.3 billion
  • Hanwha/Kalyon will have to procure domestically produced PV equipment and employ 80% of domestic engineers
  • A PV production equipment factory will be constructed within 21 months post the agreement signing

Turkey has awarded the 1 GW solar power tender capacity to South Korea's Hanwha Corporation and Turkey's Kalyon Enerji. The two had bid together for the tender as a consortium.

They won the project for a bid of $0.0699 cents per kWh, the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources shared in a press conference. Conducted under reverse auction, the ceiling price per MW was $0.08 cents per kWh, according to news portal Hurriyat Daily News.

A total of four consortiums participated in the tender, which was a mix of Turkish, Saudi and Chinese companies. The winning consortium's PV production part, Hanwha Q Cells, is one of the world's leading solar cell and module manufacturers, which according to its Q3/2016 results was planning to ship between 4.8 to 5 GW of modules in 2016 from its factories in Korea, Malaysia and China.

Turkey had been contemplating solar and coal tenders since 2016 when the Energy Minister Berat Albayrak announced his government's intention (see 1 GW PV Tender Planned In Turkey).

It will come up in the Central Anatolian province of Konya's Karapinar district. The project is said to be the 'largest of its kind in the world', attracting investment worth $1.3 billion from countries as the US, China and Europe. With the latest tender results in, Albayrak said, that investments will exceed $1.3 billion.

In keeping with the requirement of the tender conditions, the consortium will use domestically produced PV equipment, and also employ 80% domestic engineers. Hurriyet Daily News referred to a report by state agency Anadolu to share that a "PV equipment production factory" will produce equipment for the Karapinar YEKA solar plant. It will be constructed within 21 months post the agreement signing. The Anadolu article did not specify if this factory will make only modules or also cells.

Announcing the tender results, Albayrak stated that his government plans to float a tender for wind energy on the same lines.

The country is planning to have an installed solar power capacity of 3,000 MW by 2019, according to the ministry's Strategic Plan 2015-2019. Last year, Turkey installed 571 MW, a strong increase from the 191 MW that were added in 2015.