Kalyon-Hanwha Co. to build Turkey's biggest solar plant

By Murat Temizer

ANKARA (AA) - The Kalyon-Hanwha consortium won the tender bid on Monday for the construction of Turkey's biggest solar power plant in Karapinar in the Central Anatolian region at cost of $0.0699 per kilowatt hour.

Overall four companies participated in the tender, which was held in the Turkish Energy and Natural Resources Ministry's building in Ankara on Monday.

The tender was conducted in a reverse auction and the ceiling price per megawatt was set at $0.08.

Turkey plans to supply most of its energy needs from domestic resources and has held its first auction for renewable energy resources for 1,000 megawatts of installed capacity along with a production factory for photovoltaic equipment.

The tender requested local production of equipment and stipulates that local engineers should constitute 80 percent of employment in the project.

The solar project in Konya's Karapinar province will meet the energy needs of more than 600,000 households, Berat Albayrak, Turkey's energy and natural resources minister, said in October 2016.

The photovoltaic equipment production factory, which will produce the equipment for the Karapinar YEKA power plant, will be constructed in the following 21 months after the signing of the tender agreement.