Turkcell Group, owner of the leading mobile operator in Turkey, has announced plans to invest around US$240 million in green energy projects.
Part of the programme is the installation of new solar power plants with a total capacity of 300 megawatts over the next three years – but the company is looking a lot further ahead than 2025.
As it explains: “We aim to provide 100% of our energy consumption from renewable energy sources by the year 2030.” It cites the recent implementation of “pioneering solutions”, including solar energy developed for its data centres and offices, the acquisition in 2021 of the Karadağ Wind Power Plant (with 18 MW installed capacity), and the integration of solar panels into, so far, around 735 base stations.
This activity will contribute to around 65% of the company’s power consumption coming from renewable energy sources by 2026.
Boosting these efforts is the state-owned Turkish Electricity Transmission Corporation, which, along with regional electricity distributors, has allocated Turkcell a capacity permit for 213 megawatts. “The efforts for new capacity permits are ongoing as well,” says the company.
According to Statista, as of the second quarter of 2022, Turkcell’s mobile business had a market share of 41.3%, ahead of Vodafone at 30.4 %, and TT Mobil at 28.3%. According to the company’s own figures, it had 42 million subscribers across fixed and mobile in Q2 2023; the mobile subscriber base reached 37.6 million in the same quarter.
