The end of ten years
Solar plants commissioned under Law 5346 by 30 June 2021 received YEKDEM support for ten years at a fixed 13.3 US cents/kWh. The price was in dollars, offtake was guaranteed and imbalance risk did not fall on the plant. It is hard to imagine a more predictable revenue model for an investor.
That period is now closing. Solar capacity in Türkiye grew quickly from 2016, and most of it was unlicensed. Plants commissioned in 2016 complete their support in 2026; the 2017–2018 wave follows in 2027–2028.
Over the next three years about 5 GW of solar moves from a fixed price to the market price. Most of it belongs to small and mid-sized investors with neither a team nor the systems for market operations.
The revenue cliff
The first question for a solar plant leaving YEKDEM is what each MWh will now sell for. The answer is the price in the hours the sun shines, and that price has fallen markedly over the past two years.
In 2025 the sales-weighted average price in solar hours was about 2,197 TL/MWh, 16% below the market average. Wind was only 1% below the average in the same year. The gap comes from solar pricing itself down: every solar plant generates in the same hours and pulls midday prices lower.
For a solar plant, the market price is not the average PTF but the price of the hours the sun shines.
This ratio is not fixed. In spring 2026 midday prices often fell to zero; in April the 12:00 average was 99 TL/MWh. As solar capacity grows, the most likely path is a further fall in the solar price ratio.
The new framework: what changed in 2026
In the first half of 2026 a series of rules directly affecting unlicensed plants leaving support were published. They defined the default option, eased the cost side and removed an obstacle to moving into a licensed structure.
Under the new decision, the regional supplier continues to buy the surplus energy of unlicensed plants that are not in an aggregator portfolio. The price is 90% of the current YEKDEM price for licensed plants, but in no hour can it exceed that hour’s PTF. For plants at the same metering point as consumption, all surplus is purchased. At separate metering points EPDK may set a limit, and energy above it counts as a free contribution to YEKDEM. EPDK applied no limit for 2026.
In practice, because PTF in solar hours is usually well below that amount, the price the regional supplier pays is largely the hourly PTF. The plant is protected from imbalance risk but cannot benefit from any price above PTF.
Illustrative calculation. Connection type and tariff group change the applicable fee.
The distribution fee cut may be the most important number in this article. Under the old tariff, even at 2025 prices almost all post-support revenue would have gone to the fee. With LÜ-2 the plant’s economics make sense again.
Four routes to market
A solar plant leaving YEKDEM has four basic routes today. They are not mutually exclusive; an investor can choose different routes for different plants or move from one to another over time.
Regional supplier: the default, but capped
A plant that does nothing stays here. Its advantage is simplicity: no collateral, forecasting, bidding or imbalance obligations. Its drawback is the price structure. Because the price can never exceed PTF, the plant gets PTF when the market is low and a capped amount when it is high. It is a market price with the upside cut off.
The structure also rests on a public decision whose terms can change. If the purchase ratio or volume limit is reset, the plant’s revenue changes without any action by the investor. A long-term valuation has to account for that uncertainty.
Aggregator: full PTF and the portfolio effect
A plant in an aggregator portfolio sells at hourly PTF with no cap. Output extending into the evening, higher prices on cloudy days and any rise in the price cap flow straight to the plant. In return it pays a service fee and, depending on the contract, bears part of the imbalance cost.
The aggregation regulation caps the unlicensed capacity in each aggregator’s portfolio at 500 MW. Given the size of capacity leaving support, that cap will increase competition between aggregators for plants and the number of aggregators. For the plant owner it means bargaining power.
On imbalance, solar is a mixed case. Solar forecasts are more accurate than wind, but all solar plants in a region err in the same direction. A solar plant’s value in an aggregator portfolio therefore depends directly on the portfolio’s technology and regional mix.
Bilateral contracts: fixing the price
The biggest risk for a plant leaving support is that the price in solar hours keeps falling year after year. The way to fix that risk is a bilateral contract through an aggregator or supplier, setting a fixed or indexed price for the plant’s generation profile.
The key is what the buyer is pricing. Solar output is not a flat baseload but a profile concentrated around midday. The buyer prices in the market value of that profile and the imbalance risk it takes on. An offer should be compared with the solar sales-weighted price, not the average PTF.
Corporate buyers bring a second value line: YEK-G certificates. For companies reporting Scope 2 emissions and exporting to the EU, certified renewable energy matters more and more. Pricing the certificate separately can raise the total value of the contract.
Moving to a licensed structure
The Constitutional Court’s annulment of the licence fee for moving from unlicensed to licensed lowers the cost of this route from 10 December 2026. A licensed plant can bid in the day-ahead market as its own participant, sign bilateral contracts or still join an aggregator.
A licence also means collateral, market operations, reporting and compliance. For a single plant of a few megawatts that burden often outweighs the gain. A licensed structure makes most sense for investors who can bring several plants under one roof and reach the scale to build a trading team.
A decision framework
Whichever route is chosen, two things hold. First, the plant’s real price is the price of solar hours, not the average PTF, and every offer should be measured against it. Second, the regulatory framework is still taking shape, so contracts that leave flexibility and have short exit terms are valuable in this period.
The investor’s view
A solar plant has a technical life of 25–30 years. After support ends there are another 15–20 years exposed to market prices. That period should be valued as an entirely new asset, not as a continuation of YEKDEM cash flows.
Three assumptions drive the valuation: the path of the solar price ratio, how durable regulation-dependent items such as the distribution fee and purchase price are, and how much value the plant creates within a portfolio. Together they can price the same plant very differently from one investor to the next, which is why secondary-market trading in plants leaving support will pick up.
At Frekans we assess each plant leaving support on its generation profile, connection structure and the investor’s financing position together. We compare joining our aggregation portfolio, a fixed-price bilateral contract and a move to a licensed structure side by side.
