Erdogan opens up ingot-to-module solar factory in Ankara

• The $1.4 billion cost consists of a 1 GW solar field 260km away in Konya. The manufacturing facility will certainly be created exclusively by Kalyon Solar Technologies after advancement partner Hanwha Q-Cells bowed out the project.

Turkish PV producer Kalyon Solar Technologies held the opening ceremony for its Ankara gigafactory this week with president Recep Tayyip Erdogan present.

The vertically-integrated fab will at first have a 500 MW annual production ability for the manufacture of solar ingots, wafers, cells and modules, rising to 1 GW in future.

Construction of the gigafactory hurt in March 2017 as well as included the installment of a 1 GW solar area 260km south of the Turkish resources in Konya. A joint bid by Kalyon and also Korean maker Hanwha Q-Cells secured the tender yet Hanwha ultimately ignored the deal.

The 1 GW solar plant will cost $1 billion and the Ankara factory $400 million in a bargain which notes among the nation's most significant energy investments.

Kalyon will create 1,400 factory jobs throughout the first stage of procedures with 100 researchers operating in an affiliated research center.

The solar power plant is anticipated to provide a 20% lift to the quantity of electricity produced from solar in Turkey and also the very first of the 3.5 million panels intended at the website were installed as the factory opening event was occurring. The plan is to outfit the significant solar field with modules produced at the Ankara fab with the first panels having rolled off the assembly line in recent weeks. Ingots, wafers and also cells are currently following.

German PV manufacturing devices vendors RCT Solutions has sustained development of the manufacturing facility because the usefulness research study stage as well as German devices has actually been mounted on the production lines.

" Many European countries are currently thinking about rebuilding a complete photovoltaic or pv worth chain that includes all manufacturing actions," RCT president Peter Fath informed pv magazine. "In Turkey they have actually currently shown how as well as exactly how it functions."

Rapid work

The RCT chief said his business started working with Kalyon in May last year, the solar producer signed vendor contracts in October as well as the Covid-19 dilemma prompted only a minor hold-up before module production began.

The Turkish government decided to support the facility in September, with a TRL1.99 billion ($ 333 million) "very incentive."

The nation wants to become a solar production center, and also renewables developer Eko Yenilenebilir Enerjiler AS in March last year began constructing its own 1 GW vertically incorporated panel factory in Niğde, main Anatolia.