YEKA is the abbreviation of capital letters of “Yenilenebilir Enerji Kaynak Alanları” which means Renewable Energy Resource Zones.  RES is the abbreviation of capital letters of “Rüzgar Enerji Santrali” which means Wind Energy Power plant. 

Ministry of Energy of Türkiye executes wind tenders for YEKA RES zones since 2017, and so far 2850 MW capacity was tendered in the first three YEKA RES competitions; respectively – 1000 MW in 2017, 1000 MW in 2019, and 850 MW in 2022. Tender eligibility requirements and competition rules were different in all these three tenders. However, the common point for these three tenders, in none of them projects were developed. 

Projects were pre-developed in YEKA-4 RES 2024

YEKA-4 RES 2024 Competition was announced on 28 October 2024 for a connection capacity of 1200 MW in five different projects. Different than before in this tender, the announced projects were pre-developed by Ministry and long-term wind measurements were carried out, site coordinates, and even turbine coordinates are defined, and development data was shared with tender participants.

Here are some highlights for this tender rules are given in below table.

Tender Applications

Deadline for YEKA-4 RES 2024 was 21 January 2025, and investors were given around three months of time for preparations. Since Turkish wind market is eager for the developed wind projects, interest from the local investors were high, and 40 different investor groups were applied for the competition. The below table shows number of bidders for each project. Since the investment amount (CAPEX) increases with the capacity, more applicants were seen for smaller capacities. However, even 14 applicants for 410 MW Edirne RES Project were enough for a tough competition.

Tender Results

In all these five projects tenders, first offers for feed in tariff which were provided within the closed envelopes contains minimum tariff of 3,5 USDcents/kwh. Therefore, reverse auction rounds for feed in tariffs were not carried, tenders directly started with auctioning off Contribution Fee per MW after the opening of closed offers.

Tender rounds for all five projects were very competitive in increasing contribution fees, even after reaching to lowest feed-in tariff of 3,5 USDcent/kwh for 20 years without annual escalation. Table 3 shows results of tender with the winning investors, and auction rounds.

Next Step for the short term period for YEKA-4 RES 2024

The winning bidder for each project will be invited by the Ministry for the signing of YEKA Agreements, and afterward total contribution fee shall be paid in full amount until 31 March 2025 to EPİIAS which is electricity market operator. Table 4 shows the total contribution fee amount for each project.

About Habib Babacan 

Habib Babacan has been working professionally in the Turkish Wind Energy sector since 2008. He continues to provide consultancy services, with his own initiative, Mature Capital, to investors in the fields of Business Development, Project Development, Strategy Formulation and M&A of Projects in the wind business. 

More information about Mature Capital, which focuses on Mergers and Acquisitions of Wind Projects (M&A), is available through the links below.

https://www.maturecapital.com.tr

https://www.linkedin.com/company/mature-capital-m/

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References

1. IRENA (2021). Renewable Capacity Statistics 2021. International Renewable Energy Agency.

2. IFC (2018). Climate Investment Opportunities in Emerging Markets. International Finance Corporation.

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