1) Why the legal process is the project in Türkiye
Turkey’s solar (GES) and wind (RES) markets attract developers, infrastructure funds, strategic investors, and corporate offtakers because the resource potential is strong and the market is structured around a regulated—but investable—framework. At the same time, a renewable project in Turkey is not “one permit + one license.” It is a chain of public-law approvals (environment, zoning, land, forestry/pasture, grid capacity) that must align with private-law contracts (EPC, O&M, PPA/offtake, financing). The most expensive failures are rarely technical—they are legal timing failures: a missed pre-license milestone, an EIA challenge that pauses construction, an unbankable land right, a grid connection dead-end, or an equity transaction that triggers regulatory consequences.
This guide maps the end-to-end legal roadmap for GES and RES projects in Turkey, focusing on the decisions that make a project approvable, financeable, and exit-ready.
2) Regulatory landscape: who regulates what?
Electricity Market Law and the EMRA/EPDK role
The electricity market is governed by Electricity Market Law No. 6446, which establishes licensing architecture, regulator powers, and key investor obligations. (epias.com.tr)
EMRA/EPDK is the core regulator for licensing and compliance. It also publishes official summaries of the pre-license and generation license processes and required steps. (EPDK)
TEİAŞ and distribution companies: grid access reality
In practice, grid connection capacity is a defining constraint. Sector analysis notes that TEİAŞ announces regional connection capacity based on planning studies and identified needs, and that connection bottlenecks can shape project selection and timeline. (ember-energy.org)
Ministry-led tender model: YEKA
Large-scale capacity allocations are often structured through the Renewable Energy Resource Areas model (YEKA). Tender specifications and contract structures are published by the Ministry and become binding project documents for YEKA winners. (Enerji Bakanlığı)
Support and price frameworks
Renewables are also shaped by the support mechanism under Renewable Energy Law and related Presidential decisions that set tariff structures and update principles for eligible plants within defined commissioning windows. (www.kinstellar.com)
3) Project development phases: a clean legal timeline for GES/RES
A bankable renewable project in Turkey typically follows eight phases:
- Site selection and land strategy
- Grid capacity screening and connection pathway
- Corporate structuring and eligibility check
- Pre-license application (licensed projects)
- Environmental approvals (EIA/“ÇED” track)
- Zoning, construction, and sector permits
- Generation license, construction, acceptance, and commissioning
- Operations, market compliance, and exit readiness
The key is to run these in the correct order without creating gaps (e.g., spending heavily on EPC before grid certainty, or closing an equity round during a restricted phase).
4) Site selection and land rights: the hidden bankability test
Private land vs public land vs mixed corridors
Most GES/RES projects involve some combination of:
- private parcels (purchase, lease, easement),
- Treasury land or other public land (permission and/or easement),
- shared corridors for access roads, cable routes, substations, and transmission lines.
Even when the generation facility sits on one parcel, the project can fail if cable routes or access rights are not secured.
What investors should build into land documents
To make land rights finance-grade, counsel typically ensures:
- clear term (aligned with the license/operation horizon),
- clear right type (lease vs easement vs usufruct),
- clear assignment/step-in possibilities for lenders (within regulatory limits),
- clear dispute and eviction protection (especially for long-term leases),
- clear mapping and coordinates consistent across permits and technical files.
Expropriation interface in energy projects (when needed)
In some electricity projects, land procurement may interface with the expropriation system through regulator-driven procedures. Even where expropriation is legally available, experienced investors treat it as a last-resort schedule tool because it can trigger litigation risk and social resistance, which is itself a delay risk.
5) Grid connection: the point where many projects die quietly
The core question: can the grid take your power?
For both solar and wind, the critical early-stage legal question is:
Is there allocable connection capacity at the targeted point, and under which connection regime will the project proceed?
TEİAŞ’s capacity announcements and planning constraints shape whether projects can proceed, and developers often underestimate the time and uncertainty involved in securing connection. (ember-energy.org)
Practical grid strategy for GES/RES developers
A disciplined approach typically includes:
- early screening of available capacity (transmission vs distribution),
- alternative connection points and “plan B” corridors,
- a clear route for system connection agreements and system use agreements (as applicable),
- alignment of connection timing with pre-license milestones.
Because grid capacity constraints are a recurring policy and investment topic, the market increasingly structures projects around hybrid solutions and staged investments—yet the legal process still starts with connection feasibility. (ember-energy.org)
6) Licensing choice: licensed generation vs license-exempt models
Licensed generation: pre-license → generation license
For utility-scale projects and many merchant or PPA-backed plants, the standard pathway is pre-license first, then generation license once pre-license obligations are fulfilled. EMRA provides an official overview of these licensing procedures. (EPDK)
Electricity Market Law also anchors the requirement to provide guarantee instruments tied to investment scale when moving through licensing stages. (epias.com.tr)
Corporate eligibility and governance
A project company should be structured from day one to avoid later compliance friction:
- clean share ledger and corporate approvals discipline,
- clearly documented beneficial ownership (especially for foreign capital),
- governance built to support lender controls without triggering prohibited “control shifts.”
Pre-license sensitivity: equity transactions can be a legal risk
One of the most misunderstood issues: during the pre-license phase, the law restricts direct or indirect shareholding changes and transactions that result in share transfers, subject to exceptions in secondary regulation. (epias.com.tr)
Transaction takeaway: if you plan a seed round, strategic investor entry, or internal group restructuring, you must align it with the licensing stage and the applicable approval/notification rules.
License-exempt models: typically self-consumption structures
License-exempt projects are common for rooftops and industrial self-consumption portfolios. They can be powerful, but the legal model is strict and increasingly compliance-heavy; it is not simply “no license means no regulation.”
7) Environmental approvals: EIA/“ÇED” pathway for solar and wind (updated thresholds)
Environmental approvals are often the longest and most litigated segment of the project timeline. A “permit-ready” developer treats the EIA process as a litigation-prevention exercise: strong baseline studies, clean public participation process where required, and a file that can survive administrative-court scrutiny.
Updated EIA thresholds for solar and wind
Regulatory changes in 2025 adjusted project thresholds and categorization:
- Wind power plants: Annex-1 includes wind projects with 15 or more turbines and offshore wind; smaller turbine-count projects fall under Annex-2. (LEXPERA)
- Solar power plants: Annex-1 includes solar projects with project area 25 hectares and above (excluding rooftop/facade systems); Annex-2 includes solar projects with project area 7.5 hectares and above (again excluding rooftop/facade systems). (LEXPERA)
Because EIA rules can be amended, counsel should verify the current Annex thresholds at the time of application and map the project area/turbine count precisely to avoid category errors.
What typically causes EIA-related delays
- inconsistent project area or turbine specs across documents,
- weak alternatives analysis (site/route),
- public objection management failures,
- insufficient baseline biodiversity or cumulative impact analysis,
- misalignment between EIA scope and later zoning/construction permit applications.
8) Zoning, construction permits, and “permit acceleration” trends
Zoning and building permits are often the critical path
Even where the licensing track is clear, many projects stall at zoning/building license stages. Turkey’s policy discussions have explicitly identified zoning/building licensing, EIA, expropriation, and forestry/pasture permissions as the heavy segments of the permit chain. (Enerji Bakanlığı)
“Super permit” and faster approvals: what it means for investors
Recent commentary discusses legislative/regulatory moves aiming to accelerate approvals and adjust zoning procedures for wind and solar projects. (Çakmak Attorney Partnership)
From an investor standpoint, “faster permitting” does not remove legal risk—it compresses timelines and increases the importance of a perfect file. When timeframes shrink, deficiency letters and resubmissions become more expensive.
9) YEKA vs “merchant” development: choosing the right route
YEKA route: tender-driven certainty with heavier obligations
YEKA tenders allocate capacity and impose defined obligations through specifications and contract structures. Solar and wind tender specs are published and include technical and documentation requirements, often including domestic equipment obligations and detailed auction documentation. (Enerji Bakanlığı)
YEKA projects can offer structured revenue and capacity access, but investors must price:
- strict performance timelines,
- guarantee requirements,
- local content and technical compliance obligations,
- tender-specific dispute risks.
Merchant / corporate PPA route: flexibility with stronger private-law complexity
For non-YEKA projects, the legal work shifts to:
- balancing merchant price exposure,
- structuring corporate PPAs and certificate claims,
- allocating imbalance and curtailment risks,
- aligning finance documents with regulatory constraints.
10) Financing and security: what lenders require and what the regulator may restrict
Financing renewable projects in Turkey often requires:
- share pledges,
- account pledges,
- step-in structures,
- negative pledge and change-of-control covenants,
- assignment of receivables under PPAs/offtake arrangements.
In regulated electricity contexts, share transfers and control shifts can trigger regulatory approvals and procedures, and recent analyses on share transfer rules emphasize that the electricity market has specific regulatory layers governing such transactions. (turkishlawblog.com)
Practical drafting tip: A finance package should be designed so that lender protections do not accidentally become an unauthorized control transfer in the eyes of the regulator.
11) Construction, acceptance, and commissioning: legal milestones that must match technical milestones
Common legal milestones during construction
- construction permit validity and extension control,
- land right continuity (no gaps, no termination risk),
- contractor compliance and delay documentation,
- grid connection milestones (substation, line works, energization),
- acceptance tests and final commissioning documents.
A strong legal project management approach keeps a “milestone evidence binder” that is also a future litigation binder—because disputes are often decided by what you can prove, not what you believe happened.
12) Typical disputes in GES/RES projects and how to de-risk them
Dispute cluster A: permit cancellation and administrative litigation
EIA and zoning decisions can be challenged in administrative courts. Investors must plan for:
- early case assessment,
- request for interim relief where risk of irreparable harm exists,
- expert-driven defense strategy,
- stakeholder communication.
Dispute cluster B: landowner and corridor conflicts
Even with a lawful permit chain, corridor conflicts can delay energization. The most cost-effective strategy is often to secure corridors early and use transparent compensation logic—because “winning later” may still mean missing commissioning windows.
Dispute cluster C: grid constraints and curtailment exposure
Curtailment and connection delays are often “no-fault” from the project company perspective, yet they can trigger contractual defaults unless PPAs and EPC/O&M agreements allocate these risks correctly.
Dispute cluster D: equity and exit disputes
Shareholder disputes are common in projects that change hands between development, construction, and operations. The best defense is to structure:
- clear reserved matters,
- deadlock mechanisms,
- compliance covenants tied to licensing stages,
- exit routes that respect regulatory approvals.
13) Practical checklists
A) Investor checklist (pre-term sheet)
- Confirm grid capacity route and realistic energization timeline. (ember-energy.org)
- Choose licensing model (licensed vs license-exempt) and map milestones. (EPDK)
- Run EIA category test (solar hectares / wind turbine count). (LEXPERA)
- Verify land rights are finance-grade and corridor-ready.
- Decide whether YEKA or non-YEKA route fits the business case. (Enerji Bakanlığı)
- Align equity plan with pre-license restrictions and approval/notification needs. (epias.com.tr)
B) Foreign investor checklist (before signing SPA/SHAs)
- Beneficial ownership documentation and transparency plan
- Currency, tax, and dividend strategy (with local compliance)
- Regulatory approvals timeline for share transfers/control shifts (turkishlawblog.com)
- Lender security package design that avoids prohibited structural changes
- Dispute forum planning (commercial court vs arbitration for private-law contracts; administrative courts for permits)
Closing: what makes a renewable project “exit-ready” in Turkey
A GES or RES project becomes genuinely investable when its legal file is coherent from end to end:
- the land right matches the permit map,
- the EIA category matches the technical design,
- the grid pathway is real (not assumed),
- the licensing stage matches the equity timeline,
- the contracts allocate the risks the regulator will not absorb.
If you build those foundations early, you reduce delays, protect financing, and make the project far easier to sell or refinance.
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