Turkey revised its renewable energy target for 2023, with additional steps to increase the share of clean electricity production from 31 percent to more than 50 percent by 2023.
In May 2018, Turkey's energy watchdog the Energy Market Regulatory Authority (EMRA) said that the installed electricity capacity increased by 181 percent from 32,000 megawatts (MW) over the last 15 years up to 90,000 MW. The share of renewable electricity capacity out of total installed capacity reached 46 percent in May while renewable power generation was around 30 percent.
In 2013, in accordance with Turkey's National Renewable Energy Action Plan, Turkey's renewable electricity share was 29 percent and the share of installed clean energy capacity was around 40 percent.
After hitting 31 percent of renewable electricity production in August 2018, Turkey's authorities took concrete investment steps to revise its renewable target for 2023.
On Aug. 3, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced that the country's 100-day action plan to develop the domestic energy sector with domestic energy sources including wind, solar and geothermal power.
As part of the plan, the country aims to use more renewables through a series of tenders for solar power plants with a total capacity of 3 gigawatts (GW) and with an estimated investment of nearly $4.8 billion.
The country also plans to boost its both wind and solar capacity by 10,000 MW each in the coming decade through renewable energy resources areas (YEKA) tenders.
The Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources will accept applications until Oct. 23 for one of the biggest offshore wind plants in the world at 1,200 MW, which will also be the first of its kind in the country.
The ministry will soon begin appraising consortium applicants for the wind tender, the date and place of which has yet to be confirmed. The ceiling price for one megawatt-hour in the reverse bid auction has been set at $8.
Part of the tender stipulates that the winning investor, who submits the lowest bid, will sign an energy purchase agreement with Turkey's energy and natural sources ministry for the first 50 terawatt-hours of electricity production starting from the first commissioning of the plant.
The tender specifications require 60 percent local equipment production and call for 80 percent of the engineers employed to be of Turkish origin.
Saros and Gallipoli located in the Marmara region and Kıyıköy in the Thrace were named the candidate regions for the power plant in March.
Meanwhile, to bolster Turkey's electricity sector, Serhat Çeçen, the head of Turkey's Electricity Distribution Services Association (ELDER) said that around $23 billion was allocated for electricity distribution and privatization over the last decade.
A total of $13 billion was used for distribution and retail while $10 billion was allocated for the privatization of production facilities.
Despite the power sector expenditures, Turkey places importance on energy efficiency and aims to save $30.2 billion by 2033 thanks to its National Energy Efficiency Action Plan announced in April.
The plan includes 55 actions to develop energy efficiency measures throughout various sectors in industry, transport, construction, agriculture, and energy generation and transformation.