Biogás

Meanwhile in Europe despite the relatively low solar radiation levels, there have been many developments in the solar energy market. It is important to mention the policies Europe has implemented recently. Although the EU is a pioneer in terms of renewable energy efforts, there are still some policy implementation problems, mostly due to its supra/multi-national structure. Turkey may acquire some beneficial lessons from the EU policies and practices for improving its renewable energy future (including solar energy) policies (Kepenek, 2009). So in this section first a support from literature about EU solar energy policies is supplied and then the related results obtained from interviews are presented.

White Paper (COM/97/599), launched in 1997, is the main policy attempt for the promotion of renewable energy to decrease the dependence of the Union on imported energy sources and environmental problems. The Directive 2001/77/EC launched in September 2001, is the next crucial step for the promotion of renewable energy in the internal electricity market, i.e. liberalization process (Kepenek, 2009). This directive has set a target that renewables should contribute to 21% of the total electricity consumption in 2020. The recent 2030 policy framework aims to make the economy and energy system in the EU more competitive, secure and sustainable and sets the new target as 27% for renewables by 2030 (Ortega-Izquierdo & del Rio, 2016). To achieve this target, all member countries had to make their own national policies according to the directive which was not easy due to the harmonization and coherence problems between international policies. The institutional, political, cultural differences between member states affect the implementation processes as well (Kepenek, 2009).

For example, market conditions for PVs in the EU differs from country to county. This is due to different energy policies and public support programs for renewables and especially PVs, also varying liberalization of domestic electricity markets. Germany is the leader country in that sense. With the Renewable Energy Sources Act (or Erneuerbare Energien Gesetz, EEG)

46 in 2000, a guaranteed feed-in-tariff for electricity generated from solar PVs for 20 years was introduced (Jäger-Waldau, Szabó, Scarlat, & Monforti-Ferrario, 2011).

Renewable electricity (RES-E) support policies of EU can be regarded in two dimensions. First, policies may regulate either the price or quantity generated, and second, policy may support the investment in RES-E capacity or directly subsidize generation. Table 7 summarizes RES-E support policies in the EU (Jenner, Groba, & Indvik, 2013).

Price Quantity

Investment _{Investment subsidies}

Tax credits

Low interest/soft loans

Tendering systems for investment grants

Generation

Fixed price feed-in tariffs Premium feed-in tariffs

Renewable energy portfolio standards (i.e. quotas)

Tendering systems for long term contracts

Table 7: RES-E Support Policies in the EU

After the European Energy Union strategy was adopted in February 2015, identifying 5 key topics (Security of Supply, Fully-integrated Internal Energy Market, Energy Efficiency, Climate Action, Research & Innovation), the European Commission launched consultations, practices on self-consumption renewable energy, legislative proposal to improve Emissions Trading System (ETS) and a revision of Renewable Energy Directive for the year 2020. Several member states have started to modify their regulatory frameworks. Germany and UK for example will use feed-in premiums in addition to remuneration based on electricity market prices to support parts of solar market. In Germany, as of 2016 installations between 100 kW and 1 MW have to sell excess electricity on the market (Solar Power Europe, 2016).

Member States in the EU are transitioning to tender schemes as a new way of allocating support. France led to implement tenders for solar power plants, the UK and Germany followed France in 2015. So, distributed solar power is moving towards self-consumption and prosumerism is rising. It is believed that in this way, control of energy bills will be easier, retail competition will be increased, consumers will become active players in the energy transition. Also there are side-benefits expected which are demand-side flexibility, steering storage, smart appliances, flexible contracts (Solar Power Europe, 2016).

Still, there are some barriers. For example, Austria has imposed a tax on self-consumed electricity. Belgium (Flanders region) has implemented an additional grid fee for prosumers

47 rather than revising the current net-metering scheme France is about to increase the share of fixed grid costs and reduce the variable part. Commercial installations have to pay EEG levy for self-consumed electricity. Spain on the other hand, made self-consumption de facto impossible. Such barriers are reducing the economic benefits for prosumers in Europe (Solar Power Europe, 2016).

According to one of the interviewees, EU has the purchase-guarantee for 20 years while it is 10 years in Turkey. So, the pay-back duration of the investments is much shorter in the EU than Turkey. Also he mentioned that the conventional electricity prices in Europe are also high so there is not much difference with the solar energy prices. So, the investors also the residents can choose investing solar rather than using conventional electricity, but in Turkey the conventional electricity is quite cheap already. So, especially residential solar use does not cover the investment cost despite of the given incentives. Therefore the reason why the residential solar use exceeds that of Turkey is the fact that electricity generated out of solar does not create much price difference in Europe. Moreover, other two interviewees stated that the EU started with small amounts of generation capacities such as 10 kW, 15 kW to get experience in the market first. However, in Turkey it was vice versa, the starting capacities for solar energy generation were relatively higher such as 500 kW, 1 MW. The reason of this was the installation fees including permission fee etc. is too high in Turkey, so the investors chose to generate as high capacity as they can to make more profit and for the payback of the money they paid in the beginning. Such high starting capacities caused several problems regarding to implementation of regulations, control of actions, sake of the system as mentioned in the previous section.

Another big difference between the EU and Turkey is the financial situation. EU has the advanced solar technology and financial resources, while Turkey is still struggling with financing high investment costs. As mentioned by three of the interviewees, most of the investors in Turkey try to get loans from the banks and cover the installation costs. Due to the fact that Turkey is still a developing country, as mentioned by three interviewees, Turkey is not in the position where allocating resources for renewables is not a burden for the economy. So, Turkey has still limited financial resources and middle-sized economy. Investing in renewables requires also many side investments such as buffer zones, supportive structures etc. In that case, so far base load power plants became the highest priority for Turkey, the plants which continuously supply electricity.

48 Therefore, it can be concluded that EU has more developed solar energy generation, due to the correct policies having been followed so far and the advantage of having a big economy. Turkey still needs more resources to be allocated to renewables and firmer regulations.