The increase of exploitability of renewable energy sources in Turkey

Abstract

Turkey is rapidly growing in terms of both its economy and its population. In parallel, its demand for energy is increasing fast. Energy is one of Turkey’s most important development priorities. Today, Turkey’s economy is mainly dependent on oil, gas, coal, and electricity. Turkey’s energy production meets only a part of its total energy consumption and thereby is an energy-importing country. On the other hand, Turkey has a large potential for renewable energies. The most important renewable sources are wind, biomass, hydro, solar and geothermal. Turkey would have to commit to the development and implementation of renewable energy technologies and energy conservation. The implementation of renewable energy technologies would reduce the current national and global environmental problems as well as national energy insecurity associated with the production and use of fossil energies. The article stresses the significance of the use of renewable energy sources (RES) regarding the fact that the climate changes are a real problem and RES are a real solution. The article also shows the potential of biomass, solar energy, hydro energy, wind energy, and geothermal energy, as well as the actual state of exploitability of these RES in Turkey. There are identified barriers to RES implementation and proposed measures to overcome them. There are present strategies for improvement and an increase of exploitability of RES potential in compliance with the world policy in this regard. The aim of this article is to point out the necessity of creating an enabling environment for promoting RES and the gradual removal of barriers to stronger penetration in the energy market.