According to calculations based on data received from Turkish Electricity Production Company and Energy Market Regulatory Agency (EPDK), Anatolia reported installed power generation capacity across Turkey reached 50,422 MW at the beginning of last month. Of this capacity, 64.3 percent was attributable to thermal power plants and another 32.8 percent to hydroelectricity power plants. Most of the remaining 2.9 percent capacity — some 1,360 MW — was attributable to windmills, which the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government is placing an increasing emphasis on.
According to the report, so far the EPDK has issued windmill operation licenses to 120 applicants and intends to issue a further 46 in the near future. The works related to applications of another 580 companies are ongoing, Anatolia added. Speaking to the agency, EPDK officials, whose names were not disclosed in the report, said installed power generation capacity of windmills across the country is expected to become as high as 10,000 MW once the state body made its final decision about all of those 580 applications.
Turkey is presently heavily dependent on foreign energy supply but aspires to become self-sufficient by 2023, the centennial of the founding of the Republic of Turkey. To this end, the government wants to have three nuclear power plants operational in Turkey by that year while also pushing the agenda to maximize the country’s hydroelectric potential and develop renewable energy production. It has already shaken hands with Russia’s Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation for the construction of a $20 billion nuclear power plant in the Akkuyu district in the southern province of Mersin. Talks with Japan on the construction of another plant in the northern province of Sinop were suspended after the unfolding of a nuclear crisis in Japan after its twin disasters on March 11.
According to the Energy 2010 report by the World Energy Council’s Ankara-based Turkish National Committee (DEKTMK), while Turkey’s primary domestic energy generation accounted for 29.5 percent of the energy it consumed in 2009, the country’s foreign dependency increased when this rate dropped to 28.5 percent in 2010. The report forecasts that this year the country’s domestic primary energy production — despite an expected 2.5 percent year-on-year increase — will only account for 27.6 percent of its energy needs in 2011.