Çanakkale solar plant feeds national electricity grid

ÇANAKKALE – Demirören News Agency

(Reuters File Photo)

A businessman in the western province of Çanakkale has installed a solar power plant on the roof of a factory and started selling electricity worth 100,000 Turkish Liras (nearly $17,000) to the state monthly.

Ali Polat first installed a solar energy system on the roof of his bakery products factory to produce 200 kilowatts of electricity per month in 2013.

With more funding from the EU’s Instrument for Pre-Accession Rural Development (IPARD) and Turkey’s Agriculture and Rural Development Support Institution, he installed more solar panels on every available space on the roof in 2017.

His solar power investment neared $1 million, he said, adding that the installed capacity of the plant reached 1 megawatt.

“I have been producing 1.5 million kilowatts of electricity annually with 3,000 panels and 35 invertors on the roof area of 8,500 square meters,” said Polat.

“I have made a deal of 10 years with the state. It will continue buying electricity produced by the solar system on the roof for 13 cents per kilowatt. In his way, I have an income of nearly 100,000 liras in a month,” he added.

Polat also said that he used to pay nearly 15,000 liras ($2,500) for electricity used in the bakery factory before the solar power plant was installed.

“I recommend such investments to every industrial enterprise using high volumes of electricity. Over and above, it is a renewable clean energy supply. The sun warms both our body and our wallet.”