Renewable energy has a key role to play in powering Turkey’s future. A quarter of Turkey’s energy now comes from renewable sources. The government plans to aggressively increase this proportion to 30% by 2023. Turkey’s daily electricity generation from wind recently hit a new record, with 16.8% of the nation’s electricity being generated from wind turbines alone. As an open economy, keen to attract investment in renewable energy, Turkey provides significant opportunities for investors in the sector.
Even as new oil and gas fields are discovered in the Black Sea and Anatolia, the Turkish government has maintained its strategic focus on developing renewables as a crucial component of Turkey’s energy mix. Turkey has abundant sunshine and wind, so it makes sense to look to these natural resources when building power capacity for a growing country. Along with wind, solar and geothermal, Turkey also boasts significant existing hydroelectric generation capacity. Hydroelectric plants already generate over one-third of Turkey’s electricity.
The determination of the Turkish government’s move towards renewables is remarkable. In 2018, the government announced two ‘100-day plans’ to rapidly increase renewable capacity. The first of these, announced in August 2018, attracted some US$7b in investment for 340 renewable projects through a series of tenders. $4.8b was invested in solar power plants alone, with the aim of creating an additional 3 gigawatts of solar power. The second 100-day plan, announced in December 2018, sought to attract US$4.5b for 454 renewable projects. The government is also implementing feed-in tariffs and developing new investment incentives for renewables.
Turkey’s dramatic shift towards renewables has been prompted by various factors. Turkey is a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement. As a candidate for EU membership, it is obliged to align its environmental standards with those of the EU. In 2015, Turkey submitted a climate pledge called the ‘nationally determined contribution’ to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Changes to cut emissions by up to 21% by 2030, compared to a business-as-usual scenario.
