Energy transition in Turkey

published on 28th February 2023

Today, energy is understood as a universal value, not least because the raging war has made many countries ponder the question of energy independence for the first time ever. Fossil energy sources are not sustainable and their CO₂ emissions have a negative impact on climate change and that’s a fact.

Energy transition is thus a global issue that is being given more and more attention. Energy co-operations across partner countries are increasing in importance.

As the sixth largest trading partner of the EU, Turkey is, too, betting on renewable energy sources to initiate measures against the perceptible effects of climate change, to secure national energy supply, and, finally, as a potential transit country thanks to its geopolitical location, to be competitive in the global energy market. In this sense, Turkey is developing new strategies and reforming its legal and regulatory frameworks in order to promote investments absolutely necessary to achieve the goals. Crucial is international cooperation and the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources has repeatedly strongly emphasised its importance.

Energy storage

In the course of the reform of the law on renewables, regulatory amendments were enacted in November 2022, mostly relating to energy storage.

A concept aimed at promoting investment in energy storage was developed.

The term of an energy storage system has been broadened now to mean a “system that stores electricity by converting the electrical energy into another form of energy, then converts the stored energy back into electrical energy for use and feeds it to the system”. Thus, in addition to storage, also conversion and feeding energy to the system have been considered.
Legal persons who commit to installing an energy storage system are granted a pre-license for installing a power plant for the production of wind and/or solar power up to the capacity of the energy storage system.
Legal persons who already have a license for the production of wind and/or solar power and seek to instal an energy storage system are granted a permit for increasing the power plant's capacity. The requirement for increasing capacity is that the power producer must stay within the limits of the storage capacity of the energy storage system during production.

This novelty has indeed created optimistic mood among the private sector market players. Diverse battery technologies from Europe are welcome.

Turkey's hydrogen strategy

The Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources announced its hydrogen strategy in January 2023. With the Hydrogen Technologies Strategy and Roadmap, Turkey wants to lay the foundations for the development of technologies in the area of production, storage, transport, and use of hydrogen in order to achieve its net zero emission target by 2053. Due to its wide range of possible applications, hydrogen is seen as the preferred solution to drive the energy transition.

Some of the goals of the strategy are as follows:

Creating a green hydrogen sector;
Making hydrogen part of energy systems;
Research, development and technology transfer in the area of hydrogen technologies (electrolysers, fuel cells, components and systems, etc.);
Development of new incentive mechanisms for the development of domestic hydrogen technologies;
Reforming the legal and regulatory framework for the production, storage, transport and use of hydrogen;
Cooperation with the private sector to promote investment;
The installed capacity of electrolysers is to reach 2 GW in 2030, 5 GW in 2035 and 70 GW in 2053;
The cost of producing green hydrogen is to fall below 2.4 US dollars/kgH2 in 2035 and below 1.2 US dollar/kgH2 by 2053;
International cooperation in areas such as industry, technology, standards development and certification, supply chains and trade opportunities;
Promoting the increased use of hydrogen, especially in sectors where reducing CO2 emissions is most difficult (steel and iron, transportation, glass, ceramics, etc.);
Sustainable training of a qualified workforce;
Gradual decarbonisation of the heat sector by mixing hydrogen in natural gas pipelines;
Export of surplus green hydrogen or ammonia, especially to the European market.

Conclusion

With its net zero emissions target by 2053, Turkey has sent a clear signal about how necessary the energy transition is. Numerous events are organised to bring together stakeholders from the world of politics, business and society, in order to find synergy for the sake of the energy transition and make the proposed energy plans a reality. The legal and regulatory frameworks will be further reformed and new incentive mechanisms will be developed in order to create an optimistic investment climate.

Turkey's net zero target can be achieved despite the country's economic growth. However, for this to happen, renewable energies must be maximally integrated and the degree of energy efficiency and electrification in the end-user sector must be increased. In areas where it is not possible to achieve decarbonisation through electrification, hydrogen should be used as the main source of energy.

The expansion and optimisation of the energy infrastructure, digitalisation, climate-neutral production processes in industry, mobility revolution, renovation of buildings, and training for skilled workers are key topics that require massive investments. Here, Turkey is dependent on international and especially German cooperation. It can be assumed that in the course of the energy transition, new business models will be developed and their effective implementation will rely on technologies from Germany and Europe.