Turkey's solar coal energy tenders before 2017, minister says

The government is preparing to launch its first tenders for local coal and solar energy before the end of the year, Energy Minister Berat Albayrak said during a ceremony to open a giant call center in western Turkey. 
"We will undersign very important investments and projects in the upcoming period in the energy sector," the minister said at the ceremony, which he attended with Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci. 

"By launching the first local coal and solar [energy] tenders before the end of the year, we will take steps to turn Turkey into a research and development center," he said. 

The new call center was the first of nine planned facilities to collect citizen complaints regarding energy distribution, a project that will offer jobs to more than 2,000 people across the country. 

Following a meeting with power grid representatives in May, decisions were made to improve the service quality in the sector, Albayrak said. 

The power distribution sector provides services to some 40 million houses, the minister said. 

"Unfortunately we need an investment run-up, which could take a few years, to meet Turkey's [existing] infrastructure needs along with the growth."

The grid capacity has more than doubled in the past three decades, he added. 

The minister also criticized Moody's for a recent Turkey rate cut. 

"One of them [rating agencies] is downgrading us and another one is making a statement. We do not care about this," he said, adding that Turkey was in good shape in terms of fiscal and monetary policies and political sustainability. 

Following the ceremony, the minister received the first call to the center, promising the rapid repair of a streetlight in a village in western Muğla...