Turkeys incredible geothermal growth over the past decade

Istanbul, Turkey (source: flickr/ John Virgolin, creative commons)

Alexander Richter 26 Apr 2013

The Turkish Mineral Research and Exploration agency (MTA) estimates a theoretical geothermal direct use potential of 31,500 MW thermal. Today, the country ranks number 7 in the world in the utilization of geothermal energy for direct use (using heat directly, e.g. for heating, which excludes power generation), and number 1 in Europe.

The installed capacity for geothermal direct use is 4,813 MW thermal by the end of 2012, having grown by 46 percent over the past 7 years.

Turkey is rich in geothermal resources, and often only power generation projects find it into the media.

There are 225 identified geothermal areas in the country, in 2005 that number was 173. More than 145,000 meters have been drilled in those regions.

The overal heat generation capacity in Turkey is 7,000 MW thermal (a growth by 130 percent). The heating of green houses has increased from 500 acres in 2002 to 3,000 acres by the end of 2012, an increase of nearly 500 percent.

The heating of houses with geothermal heat has increased from 30,000 houses in 2002 to 90,000 houses at the end of 2012.

In 2002, Turkey had an installed geothermal power generation capacity of 15 MW electric. By 2012 the geothermal power generation capacity has reached 162.2 MW electric.

The Director General for Energy at Zorlu Energy  Sinan Ak recently said that with “more than 1,300 (geothermal reservoirs), Turkey do not benefit properly from geothermal energy and Turkey being able to utilize its existing renewable energy potential was crucial at solving its energy dependency.”

At this point in time about 90 percent of its geothermal energy potential for power generation remains untapped.

Utilizing the geothermal heating potential of 31,500 MW thermal would provide annual savings of $10 billion for Turkey.

Source: World Bulletin