Turkey’s Geothermal Electricity Power Plant Investors Association today opened its Geothermal Workshop and Conference in Ankara. Speaking at the opening session, Oguz Can, General Manager of the General Directorate of Renewable Energy (YEGM) announced that the country has already exceeded its geothermal development target set at 1,000 MW by 2023. With an installed capacity, as of today of 1,155 MW in geothermal power generation capacity, Turkey is part of only four countries that have more than 1 GW installed capacity.
With the 2023 target already reached today, Turkey has set itself a new target of 4,000 MW of capacity to be reached by 2030. “We, as the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources, think that geothermal energy is a sector in which strategic and important developments need to continue,” Can explain.
Current development in Turkey has been focused in Western Turkey, but the Ministry that new areas should be explored systematically and that there is also a big role for geothermal in direct use, such as in the agricultural sector.
The Directorate of Renewable Energy, part of the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources, is the sole governmental office in charge of setting policies and strategies in the area of renewable energy and energy efficiency.
At the end of the workshop, which will conclude tomorrow, a report will be released that analyses the development of the geothermal energy market and the recommendations for the post-YEKDEM (Turkish Renewable Energy Resources Support Mechanism) period.
YEKDEM was launched in 2011 to use the country’s vast clean energy resources efficiently and to support their development.
Source: JESDER, Anadolu Agency