Difficulties, possible solutions, needed reforms at Renewable Energy at Turkey

The main barriers for development renewable energy are: - lack of financial resources and proper lending facilities, particularly for small-scale projects constitute, - lack of detailed renewable energy resource assessments and data banks pertains to Turkey like to many other countries. But, lack of awareness and knowledge is not a big barrier in Turkey. Renewable energy is recognized as a major potential for indigenous, clean energy production. The most important handicap for foreign investors is Turkish bureaucracy. The permission for a foreign investor can be taken through one-year period with applying numerous different associations. New government had promised to make the permission producer easier. Hydroelectric generation, biomass combustion, solar energy for agricultural grain drying and hot water heating, and geothermal energy have been in use in the country for many years. Domestic water heating is the primary active solar technology. In Turkey, approximately 30,000 solar water heating systems have been installed since the 1980s. This is a minute fraction of the total potential. About 50% of existing dwellings could be fitted effectively with a solar water heater. If this potential were extended to 2025, the deployment of approximately 5 million systems (allowing for a rise in the Turkish housing stock) would be required. This could save an estimated 30 PJ (9.0 TWh) per year of oil, coal and gas and 2.0 TWh per year of electricity, giving a saving of 5.0 million tonnes of CO2 per year, or just under 1% of current Turkey CO2 production. Agricultural residues have a high potential to take the place of the lignite (40 million tons) and hard coal (1.3 million tons) used in electricity production. Biogas systems are considered to be strong alternatives to the traditional space heating systems (stoves) in rural Turkey. Geothermal heat pumps are a relatively new application of geothermal energy that has grown rapidly in recent years. On the other hand, the biggest benefit of geothermal heat pumps is that they use 25-50% less electricity than conventional heating or cooling systems. Geothermal heat pumps can also reduce energy consumption, and corresponding air pollution emissions, up to 44% compared to air source heat pumps and up to 72% compared to electric resistance heating with standard air conditioning equipment. Success story: Turkey is among the first five leader countries in its geothermal direct use applications. In Turkey, the district heating system applications were started with large scale, city based geothermal district heating systems. The investigations on geothermal energy in the country gained speed in the 1970s. However, the utilization of geothermal energy could not become widespread sufficiently due to scaling problems up to the early 1980s. Since then, important developments have been recorded in geothermal energy utilization. Recently, geothermal direct use applications have reached up to 52,000 residences equivalence of geothermal heating, and engineering design of nearly 300,000 residences equivalence geothermal district heating has been completed. Parallel to the development of geothermal energy utilization in Turkey, it is projected that by the years 2010 and 2020, the total installed capacity will increase to 3500 MWt (500,000 residences equivalent, which is about 30% of the total residences in the country) and 8300 MWt (1,250,000 residences equivalent) for space heating and to 500 MWe and 1000 MWe for power production, respectively. The investment cost for geothermal district heating systems per residence with a floor area of 100 m2 is about 1500–2500 US$ (excluding heater costs in the residence), while the payback period varies between 5 and 8 years. About 30–50% of the investment costs has been paid by consumers as a connection subscription fee, like a capital investment. The heating fees (2001 heating season) were in the range of 14–29 US$. Needed reforms: Turkey can not perform a clear strategy concerning the renewable energy sources because of energy costs and investment costs. The State encouraged the private sector for natural gas combined circuit plants and guaranteed to buy the generated electricity with a low cost and with special conditions. State performed the strategy of build, operate and transfer (BOT) system and succeeded it. The share of the natural gas combined circuit plants increased to 20% in total primary energy supply. The state achieved the sustainability in this wise. Turkey is interested in renewable energy resources and gives effort to provide the sustainability of using these energy resources. The state encouraged the municipalities in respect of the geothermal energy and gave them the permission to behave self-governing. In Turkey, the efficiency of energy utilization is not as high as Europe yet. The state leads the private sector to the World Bank’s credit in all sources of renewable energy. The State says that it will be the guarantor for the 30-40% of the cost of the private sector’s investments which are for their own needs. If the private sector can find buyer, it can sell the electricity produced in these plants. The cost of 1 kilowatt (kW) power from a renewable energy resource is 13-15 cent. If the State buys for example 10% of the generated energy by private sector for this cost, the State will gain from that too in future. It is so recently that less energy consuming building projections have taken place. Ground sourced heating and passive heating systems are not common either. For a sustainable development of renewable energy resources and settling to the Mediterranean strategy, ground sourced and water sourced heat pump systems, wind and solar energy power plants have to be kept unobstructed always. The renewable energy technologies and the energy quantities which are necessary for production per unit have to be kept always in the journal and policy of the country. Legal regulations have to be performed and the State has to give effort to make the public assimilate these regulations highly.Ahmet Koyun