Renewable Energy

Turkey gives five companies go-ahead to build solar cell factories

April 1, 2025, 9:43 AM

A solar cell factory in the Jiangsu province of China. Turkey wants to develop an integrated solar energy sector

Businesses due to invest $2.6bn
Aim to quadruple renewable capacity
Rail operator TCDD to build solar plant

Turkey’s government has approved a series of projects designed to boost the country’s self-sufficiency in renewables technology – and lay the groundwork for exports.

Last week, as protests continued in Istanbul and interest rates spiralled, Mehmet Kacır, Turkey’s industry and technology minister, announced that five private sector businesses – Alfa Solar, Astroenergy, CW Solar Cell, Elin and Schmid Pekintaş – had been approved to develop integrated solar cell factories.

The five companies are due to invest a combined $2.6 billion at sites across Turkey, benefiting from incentives under the government’s $20 billion HIT-30 programme for high-tech industries.

Turkey has laid the foundations for an integrated solar energy sector, including a regulatory framework and infrastructure, and achieved end-to-end production, according to Kemal Ertuğran, general manager of Sirius Renewable Energy Tech.

“This means being able to produce cells and all of the technology in Turkey,” Ertuğran told AGBI.

Manufacturers will add “onto the existing assembling capabilities previously established to get to the stage of producing PV modules from raw material, to increase the local added value in production as well as owning this technology”, he said.

However, the detention on March 19 of Ekrem İmamoğlu, the mayor of Istanbul and a leading figure in the opposition to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has weakened business confidence and provoked calls to boycott companies seen as close to the government.

Despite this, the technology producers hope to find a ready market. Ankara laid out a roadmap last year that forecasts a fourfold increase in renewable energy capacity from 30,000 megawatts to 120,000MW by 2035. Most of the increase will come from solar and wind power.

The latest large-scale project was announced in mid-March. TCDD, the state rail operator, unveiled plans for a $75 million solar plant to be built in the eastern province of Sivas.

The plant, which is designed to have a peak capacity of 159MW, will be the first in a series of such investments aimed at offsetting TCDD’s carbon footprint, with offtake to be fed into the national grid.

The latest advances in solar capacity also have the sector looking beyond the local market for potential sales, said Ertuğran.

“Within our country the production side has increased and is continuing to expand which is driving tech development as well,” he said.

“When we add all these elements together, Turkey is becoming able to compete in global markets.”