Turkey's Ministry of Energy has allocated 700 MW of installed PV power in the second tranche of the 1 GW YEKA 4 PV tender, which was launched last July.

Günder, the Turkish PV association, said that the ministry selected two 100 MW projects and 10 projects with installed capacities of 50 MW each. The final prices for the 12 projects ranged from TRY 0.49 ($0.029)/kWh to TRY 0.597/kWh.

For the YEKA 4 procurement exercise, the ministry had set a ceiling price of TRY 0.40/kWh. In the first tranche of the solar tender, the Turkish authorities selected three 100 MW projects. The three developers offered TRY 0.375/kWh, TRY 0.39/kWh, and TRY 0.427/kWh for them.

Including both tranches, the lowest bid was TRY 0.375/kWh. The final average price was TRY0.51 ($0.031)/kWh. In the previous procurement exercise, the 1 GW YEKA 3 PV tender, the lowest bid came in at TRY 0.182/kWh.

The selected projects will receive 15-year power purchase guarantees. Domestic content requirements for equipment selection have played an important role in the tender.

“We are now pretty confident that we have a sustainable PV market of 1 GW to 2 GW annually in Turkey,” Eren Engur, a Günder board member, told pv magazine. “There is a great International investment appetite for this reliable market which is preparing to include energy storage very soon.”