Turkey's Energy Market Regulatory Authority will not cancel energy licenses if all necessary steps and regulations are conducted in time during the licensing process, the head of Turkey's energy watchdog said on Friday.
License applications cannot be processed if delays due to a force majeure from the public institutions or the local municipality occur and the application is not filed within the required time frame given by EMRA.
The watchdog cancelled 24 firms licenses last month while it approved licenses of 18 firms, according to the official gazette.
'As Energy Market Regulatory Authority, EMRA, we only cancel licenses which don't meet the necessary regulations, and we make great efforts in investigating and analyzing these licenses,' said Mustafa Yilmaz, the head of Turkey's EMRA to media before the opening ceremony of Geycek wind power plant in the city of Kirsehir in central Anatolia.
He said that they add lost time into the application process if there have been process delays from public institutions or municipalities before the application are ready for submission to EMRA.
During his conversation Yilmaz touched upon the issue of electricity distribution losses, and said that incentive fees given by the government to electricity distribution companies alleviates this issue.
Turkish power distributors face huge losses caused by unsubscribed consumers taking energy from the grid.
The most electric power distribution and transmission loss is in Turkey's eastern region with 65 percent and in the south eastern region with 75 percent.
In Turkey, the peak level of loss was 19.02 percent in 2000 and in 2013, it decreased to 15.4 percent.
Yilmaz also underlined the importance of the Geycek wind power plant in Kirsehir, which was officially launched on Friday.
“This wind power plant is a very important one for Turkey’s renewable energy sector as it is the biggest operational wind power plant in the country,” he added.
Geycek wind power plant, which has a 150 megawatt, MW, installed capacity, is located in central Anatolia, and will generate 384 million kWh of electricity per year with 70 turbines.
The power plant will meet the total electricity needs of Kirsehir, Nevsehir, Kayseri and will reduce 245,000 tons of emissions each year.
By Huseyin Erdogan and Gulsen Cagatay
Anadolu Agency
huseyin.erdogan@aa.com.tr