Turkey and China sign $15 billion renewable energy plan at COP31

Turkey and China signed a memorandum of understanding on November 12, 2026 worth approximately $15 billion for new renewable capacity and electrical infrastructure in Turkey, on the sidelines of COP31 being held in Antalya. The plan envisions 7 GW of solar and wind plants, storage systems and 4 GW of transmission, pv magazine reported.

The agreement was signed by Turkey's Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources and China's National Energy Administration (NEA), and was announced by Turkish Minister Alparslan Bayraktar. It falls within the national 2040 energy vision, which sets a target of 175 GW of solar and wind by the end of the next decade. The announcement followed the November 11 meeting between President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Chinese Vice President Han Zheng, who said Beijing will encourage more Chinese companies to invest in Turkey, according to Xinhua. Euronews reported that Turkey's solar and wind capacity stood at around 43.8 GW at the end of September 2026, just over a third of the total installed capacity.

The memorandum is a preliminary agreement: it does not define a project timeline or the financing scheme, according to Euronews. It includes technological cooperation to manufacture wind turbine equipment in Turkey. Bayraktar estimated the investment needed for the energy transition through 2040 at around $300 billion. In the first half of 2026 the country added 2.1 GW of solar, after 4.7 GW in all of 2025, and its cumulative solar capacity was 26.9 GW at mid-year, according to pv magazine.

COP31 in Antalya concludes on November 20. The location of the projects, the Chinese companies involved and the capital structure of the memorandum have yet to be published. For emerging markets in Latin America, the file documents how Chinese capital commitments in renewables are announced: a headline amount, capacity targets and industrial transfer, still without a binding schedule.

This article was drafted with the assistance of artificial intelligence from verified sources and reviewed by a human editor before publication.