Growth of BESS in the Turkish Electricity Markets

Turkish Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) market is poised for an exponential growth over the next decade. This growth is expected to be driven by several factors, including the increasing capacity of non-hydro renewables, heightened demand from industries, a rise in Electric Vehicle (EV) adoption, and the effects of recent Storage License applications and the National Energy Action Plan targets.

Turkey's Energy Market Regulatory Authority (EMRA) recently issued preliminary licenses to 12 large-scale projects that integrate battery storage with wind and solar capacity. These approvals mark the first since the introduction of the Energy Storage regulation in November. Collectively, these projects have a total capacity of 744 MW.

Since the implementation of the new regulations, EMRA has received applications for 37 GW of renewable energy projects that incorporate energy storage. These regulations permit the operation of storage facilities alongside unlicensed power plants, with the added provision allowing these power plants to expand their wind or solar capacity up to the installed capacity of the storage facility.

The primary trend on the demand side of the equation centers around the increasing capacity of renewable energy sources (RES) in Turkey. This capacity is projected to reach approximately 80-90 GW by 2035, accounting for 45-50% of the total installed electricity capacity.

On the supply side, the recent Storage License regulation, which gained approval from the Turkish Parliament in July 2022 and was officially published in the Official Gazette on November 19, 2022, has accelerated the development of the Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) market in Turkey. This regulation permits BESS operators to obtain pre-licenses for solar or wind power plants without the need for competitive auctions, as long as they do not exceed the established BESS capacity limit. Additionally, BESS operators have the option to either sell their electricity on the energy markets stock exchange (EPİAS) at market clearing prices or have their generated electricity purchased under the feed-in tariff scheme known as YEKDEM.