5th
Türkiyes rank in European electricity market.
5th
Türkiye’s rank in energy consumption in Europe.
4th
Türkiye’s rank in global geothermal power generation capacity.
4th
Türkiye’s rank in gas consumption in Europe.
Demand for energy and natural resources has been increasing due to the economic and population growth in Türkiye. It has posted the fastest growth in the OECD, with an annual growth rate of 5.5 percent since 2002. Since then, Türkiye’s primary energy supply has shown a two-fold increase. Türkiye’s growing economic performance has also been reflected on the country’s electricity generation infrastructure given the dramatic rise in the total installed capacity from 31.8 GW to 95.9 GW. To satisfy the increasing needs of the country, the current capacity is expected to reach 110 GW by 2023 through further investments to be commissioned by the private sector as underlined in the 11th Development Plan for 2019-2023.
The success of a privatization and liberalization program going on since 2002 has handed over all of the power distribution assets and 78 percent of the power generation assets to the private sector, creating revenues of USD 23 billion for the Treasury. In the same period, about USD 100 billion worth new public and private investments were completed in power generation, transmission, and distribution assets. Under the strategy to increase liberalization and competition in the market, the Energy Exchange Istanbul (EXIST), which is responsible for managing and operating energy markets, including power and gas commodities, was established in 2013.
Türkiye is a net energy importer country. The import dependence has been the main driving force behind the formulation and implementation of new policies and investment models to commission local and renewable energy resources. Türkiye has a substantial amount of renewable energy potential, and utilization of this potential has been on the rise over the last decade. As of end-2020, hydro, wind, and solar resources constitute the vast majority of the country’s renewable energy resources, accounting respectively for 30.9 GW, 8.8 GW, and 6.7 GW of the total installed capacity.
Türkiye also has a substantial amount of coal reserves, totaling 17.3 billion tons and composed of mostly lignite. It is also worth mentioning that Türkiye’s natural gas sector has been steadily improving. In order to increase security of supply and seasonal gas send-out capacity, Türkiye has commissioned two Floating Storage Regasification Unit (FSRU) terminals in 2018 and opened up the first phase of the Tuz Golu (Salt Lake) Natural Gas Storage Facility. Another goal of these investments is to expand Türkiye’s gas storage capacity to 11 bcm by 2023, up from its current capacity of 4 bcm.
