Energy Sector of Türkiye

Energy is one of the issues that is becoming more important economically and it plays an important role not only in the realization of industrial activities, but also in our social and cultural lives. Energy sources continue to increase their importance today as well as in the past. The energy, which can be described as ‘power to do business’ in the most general sense, is a resource that is needed to perform any production or consumption. Human beings have always found the opportunity to provide the energy needed for them at different times, from different sources, and have benefited from these sources in continuing their activities without any problems, such as energy failure, during the known life span.

Energy Resource Use

We can divide our energy sources into renewable and non-renewable energy sources. Renewable energy sources are primarily solar, wind, hydraulic and geothermal, whereas non-renewable energy sources are primarily coal, oil, nuclear and natural gas. Even though the installed capacity of renewable energysources is constantly increasing in the world, the majority of production is made with renewable energy sources. In Turkey, the use of renewable energy sources is far above world data. A major reason for this is the enactment of the Electricity Market Law in 2001 and the transformation of the electricity sector into acompetitive model, which is currently with very actors and where activities are separated, thanks to the legal regulations and decisive liberalization steps taken at the beginning of the 2000s. The energy resources used in Turkey and in the world are as follows:

Installed Power

According to the January 2022 report by the Load Dispatch Directorate of TERC (Turkish Electricity Transmission Corporation), the total installed capacity of thepower plants in Turkey is 99,734 MW. This figure is 2,234.9 MW in 1970, 5,119 MW in 1980, 15,856 MW in 1990, 26,117 MW in 2000, 49,524 MW in 2010, and 91,267 MW in 2020. The distribution of the installed capacity by energy source is as follows:

Nuclear Energy

Work has been underway to build nuclear power plants in Turkey since 1970, and three locations have been designated on Mersin, Sinop, and İğneada. In 2010, a contract was signed with the government of the Russian Federation for Akkuyu, one of the selected locations. The construction of the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant, comprising four power units with a 1,200 MW capacity, was initiated in 2018, and the first power unit is planned to be commissioned in 2023. With the commissioning of all power units, it is expected to produce 35 GWh of electricity annually and meet nearly 10 percent of Turkey’s electricity needs. The Republic of Turkey will purchase 70 percent of the electricity generated by the first and second power units, and 30 percent of the electricity generated by the third and fourth power units for 15 years at 12.35 cents/kWh. The project design process of the Sinop Nuclear Power Plant has been continuing.

Electricity Prices

Electricity prices are rising in Turkey as in the rest of the world. As the effects of the Covid 19 pandemic wane and countries enter the economic recovery process, electricity prices have increased due to the rapidly increasing demand for supply, the cost of our outward dependent resources such as oil, gas and imported coal, and currency fluctuations in recent years. The course of electricity prices for the household and industrial conditions is as follows: