A LEGAL OVERVIEW OF THE PROJECT APPROVAL TIME IN UNLICENSED ELECTRICITY GENERATION

The Energy and Natural Resources Ministry “Ministry” has the authority to accept the procedures and record approvals of the facilities made according to the project approval and approved projects of the electricity facilities. The Ministry may use this authority directly, or it may carry out these operations together with the specialized institution, organisation or legal persons, or by getting service from the institution, organistion or legal persons or by transferring authority to this institution, organisation or legal persons. In this context, the Ministry has authorized Turkey Electricity Distribution Corporation “TEDAŞ” for project approval, acceptance and record approval of unlicensed electricity generation facilities.

In accordance with the “Regulation” provisions of the Regulation on Unlicensed Electricity Generation in the electricity market, real or legal persons who have been sent a Call Letter to the Connection Agreement are given one hundred and eighty days from the date of notification of the Call Letter to the Connection Agreement, in order to fully submit the “Project Approval” (besides Technical Interaction Permit for applications based on wind energy) to be received within the framework of the Electrical Facilities Project Regulation “Project Regulation” in order to begin the construction of the production facility. The real or legal persons who have been sent a Call Letter to the Connection Agreement must submit the production facility and contact line project to the approval of the Ministry or the institution and/or legal persons authorized by the Ministry within the first ninety days of the said period. The connection applications of real or legal persons who do not apply for project approval within this period are deemed invalid and returned to them by the relevant network operator.

In case it is understood by the relevant network operator that the applicants are not able to obtain the project approval and the Technical Interaction Permit for their applications based on wind energy without their own flaws in order to start the construction of the production facility, the related real or legal persons are given an additional three months by the relevant  network operator in addition to the one hundred and eighty days. In this context, if the applicant real and legal persons, who are given additional time, cannot submit the documents in question until the end of the additional period given, they lose the right to sign a connection agreement with the relevant network operator and their existing documents are returned to them.

According to the project regulation, missing and incorrect issues detected during the detailed examination on the projects submitted electronically and/or printed documents are notified to the applicant within 15 working days and the related issues are requested to be corrected within 15 working days. If all of the deficiencies and errors detected cannot be resolved within this period, the projects are returned in writing.

In the first ninety days of one hundred and eighty days, for real and legal persons who applied to “TEDAŞ” for “Project Approval”, does the project return process mean rejection of the project approval application since the missing and faulty issues determined by “TEDAŞ” and notified to the applicants within 15 days cannot be corrected within 15 days? After the deficiencies and errors of the projects returned in writing in the “Project Regulation” are eliminated, there is no regulation to prevent re-applications for “Project Approval”. For this reason, it is not in our opinion to accept the return process of the projects as a refusal. However, for projects that are returned in writing, if the missing and faulty issues are resolved and submitted to “TEDAŞ” for approval before the completion of the daily period of one hundred and eighty, the review should continue for these projects. Because this application is not a new application, it is a continuation of the application. In the event that the project approval has not been completed within one hundred and eighty days period, we believe that the applicant should be given an additional three months, in addition to the one hundred and eighty days, by the relevant network operator, if it is documented by the applicant that the “Project Approval” application has been made to the relevant network operator “TEDAŞ”