China signs 15 billion dollar solar and wind deal with Nato member Türkiye
Seven-gigawatt agreement at COP31 in Antalya came with no timetable or financing details, Ankara puts its energy transition bill at 300 billion dollars by 2040
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Türkiye and China sign preliminary $15bn solar and wind deal at COP31
euronews.com
Türkiye signed a preliminary agreement with China on Thursday to attract around 15 billion dollars of investment in solar and wind power, announced at the COP31 summit in Antalya. The deal covers plants with a combined capacity of seven gigawatts, together with energy storage and upgrades to the electricity grid.
The signing followed talks between President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Chinese Vice President Han Zheng at the summit. Han said Beijing was ready to encourage more Chinese companies to invest in Türkiye, naming renewable energy as an area for closer cooperation, according to the state news agency Xinhua. Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar said the cooperation would involve sharing technology to support the production of wind-turbine equipment inside Türkiye. The announcement gave no timetable for the projects and no details of how they would be financed.
Türkiye had 43.8 gigawatts of solar and wind capacity at the end of September — just over a third of its total generating capacity. The government's national energy strategy aims to raise that to 175 gigawatts by 2040 while shifting more of the country's energy use from oil and gas to electricity. Bayraktar told the summit that the transition will require around 300 billion dollars of investment by 2040, and that attracting it would demand international partnerships and predictable conditions for investors.
The agreement places Chinese capital in the power grid of a Nato member that says it cannot finance its energy transition alone. If the money arrives, it covers about a twentieth of the bill.