Introduction
The weather-dependent and intermittent generation profile of renewable energy sources creates serious technical challenges in maintaining the instantaneous balance between supply and demand across electricity transmission and distribution grids. Playing a pivotal role in ensuring grid flexibility and mitigating frequency oscillations, electricity storage facilities display the characteristics of a generator when injecting energy into the grid, and a consumer when withdrawing energy from the grid for storage purposes. Positive energy law has historically been built upon a rigid fourfold vertical division consisting of generation, transmission, distribution, and consumption; this framework falls short of accommodating the bidirectional physical and commercial dynamics of storage. Failure to properly position this sui generis nature within the legislation gives rise to the issue of "double charging and double taxation"—where stored electricity is repeatedly subjected to grid use charges and taxes both upon withdrawal from the grid and reinjection into the system.
Storage Regulations in the US and the EU
In United States energy law, Order No. 841 adopted by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in 2018 marked a turning point in wholesale markets by mandating the participation of electric storage resources in wholesale energy, capacity, and ancillary service markets under full and non-discriminatory terms. FERC Order 841 required the development of dedicated market participation models that recognize the technical parameters of storage; subsequently, the enactment of FERC Order 2222 enabled the integration of distributed battery systems into wholesale markets via aggregators, paving the way for multi-revenue stacking.
The European Union, on the other hand, incorporated storage activities into its regulatory framework as an independent concept under Directive (EU) 2019/944 on common rules for the internal market for electricity. The most defining legal aspect of the EU regulation is that, pursuant to unbundling principles, transmission system operators (TSOs) and distribution system operators (DSOs) are, as a rule, prohibited from owning, developing, managing, or operating energy storage facilities. Investment in storage by system operators is subject to strict derogations—such as the absence of commercial market participants willing to deliver such services and the explicit approval of the national regulatory authority. This safeguards the principle that storage services must be rendered by competitive market actors and that double network charges must be eliminated.
Regulatory Framework and Installation Models in Turkish Law
The legal foundation of storage activities in the Turkish electricity market is rooted in the Electricity Market Law No. 6446 and the Regulation on Electricity Storage Activities enacted pursuant to this Law. Pursuant to Article 1(2) of the Regulation, pumped-storage hydroelectric power plants and uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) deployed for emergency backup during outages fall outside the scope of this Regulation. Article 3 of the Regulation defines an electricity storage facility as "a facility capable of storing electrical energy by converting it into another form of energy and subsequently reinjecting the stored energy back into the system by converting it back into electrical energy for utilization." In terms of equipment and performance criteria, technical priority is assigned sequentially to TS, EN, IEC, and ISO standards.
Article 4 of the Regulation provides five primary operational models for carrying out storage activities: electricity storage units integrated into a generation facility, electricity storage facilities integrated into a consumption facility, stand-alone electricity storage facilities, electricity storage facilities established by system operators, and electricity storage facilities installed by unlicensed electricity generation facilities. Furthermore, a ten percent tolerance margin is applied in the commissioning of storage units, and availability criteria are established.
With respect to units integrated into generation facilities and electricity generation facilities with storage, Article 5 of the Regulation sets forth stringent provisions. Energy drawn from the grid and reinjected into the grid, as well as round-trip conversion losses within the storage unit, are expressly excluded from the scope of YEKDEM (Renewable Energy Support Mechanism) purchase guarantees or any other incentives granted to the primary generation facility. Additionally, recording the storage unit as a distinct settlement unit (UEVÇB) is made compulsory. Under the statutory presumption introduced by Article 5(11), during any settlement period where energy is withdrawn from the grid, it is presumed that such withdrawal is carried out primarily by the storage facility if the facility has active withdrawals; conversely, where energy is injected into the grid, it is presumed that such injection is carried out primarily by the storage facility if the facility has active injections. Participation of these units in ancillary services and the balancing power market is facilitated through their associated settlement units.
Under Article 6 of the Regulation, electricity storage facilities integrated into consumption facilities may only be established to satisfy the consumer’s own demand; any energy injected into the grid from such facilities is disregarded in the relevant supplier’s settlement calculations. Storage facilities developed by organized industrial zone (OSB) or industrial zone legal entities within their boundaries are also treated within this category. In storage systems coupled with unlicensed generation facilities, no payment is made for surplus energy delivered to the grid from storage following net-metering; such energy is deemed a cost-free contribution to YEKDEM.
Stand-alone electricity storage facilities operate under Article 7 of the Regulation through direct interconnection to the transmission or distribution grid. Developing these facilities requires holding a supply or aggregator license and having an installed capacity of not less than 2 MW. If the energy injected into the system exceeds the certified electrical installed capacity of a stand-alone facility, the excess generation is credited as an unpaid contribution to YEKDEM.
Regulatory Gaps and Legal Deficiencies in Licensing Processes
Despite this detailed technical framework outlined by the legislation, significant legal and administrative ambiguities persist in practice. The primary regulatory gap stems from the exemption from competition granted to generation facilities with storage under Article 7(10) of Law No. 6446. While the overarching pillar of the Law mandates that scarce transmission capacity be allocated through competitive tenders to the investor offering the highest contribution margin, granting direct pre-license rights—without competition—to applicants committing to install storage capacity equal to their proposed wind or solar capacity triggered a massive backlog of applications. TEİAŞ’s prioritization criteria in regional substation capacity allocations and the technical justifications in capacity evaluation reports lack adequate transparency for market participants, thereby obstructing effective judicial review of administrative actions.
The second and most tangible source of dispute lies in the expropriation and property acquisition regime. Article 10 of the Regulation, which governed expropriation, was entirely repealed by the regulatory amendment published in the Official Gazette on November 19, 2022. This repeal deprived developers—especially those pursuing stand-alone electricity storage facilities—of the ability to acquire land or servitudes through public authority, leaving projects of evident public interest vulnerable to exorbitant private land pricing and real estate speculation. Furthermore, the status of storage facilities within zoning plan designations remains undefined under spatial planning legislation. Uncertainty regarding whether these facilities constitute "technical infrastructure areas," "energy generation zones," or "industrial zones" leads to arbitrary municipal zoning practices and deadlocks in building permit procedures.
Conclusion
Electricity storage facilities represent indispensable legal and technical instruments for ensuring grid stability and the continuity of renewable energy. The operational models introduced under Turkish law through the Regulation on Electricity Storage Activities have provided meaningful guidance to the sector, balancing market dynamics through principles such as the prohibition of commercial operations by system operators and statutory limitations on YEKDEM benefits. Nonetheless, formally recognizing a distinct sui generis legal status for storage under Law No. 6446, revisiting the repealed expropriation mechanisms under a balanced public interest doctrine, clarifying definitions under zoning legislation, and establishing a specialized safety, fire, and waste management regime for battery systems remain imperative to secure the legal predictability and long-term viability of storage investments.
References
- Cameron, Peter D.: International Energy Investment Law: The Pursuit of Stability, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2010.
- CEER: Short Paper on the Ownership of Storage Facilities in the Electrical Distribution System, Ref: C23-DS-84-04, 28 June 2023.
- Polat, Ege: "Türk Mevzuatında Elektrik Depolama Faaliyeti ile İlgili Düzenlemeler", LinkedIn Article, https://tr.linkedin.com/pulse/t%C3%BCrk-mevzuat%C4%B1nda-elektrik-depolama-faaliyeti-ile-ege-polat-ll-m--nzoff
- Hammerschlag, R., Schaber, C. P., 2007, Chapter 15: Energy Storage Technologies, in Energy Conversion, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
- Gemici, S. S., 2006, Investigation of Energy Storage Methods in Electric Transportation Systems (Elektrikli Ulaşım Sistemlerinde Enerji Depolama Yöntemlerinin İncelenmesi), Master's Thesis, Yıldız Technical University, Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Department of Electrical Engineering, Istanbul.
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