Turkey’s geothermal sector expects up to $1 billion in investment in 2018

Germencik 2 (Effe 3) Geothermal Power Plant, Turkey (source: Ormat Technologies)

Alexander Richter 19 Dec 2017

In a recent news piece, Mehmet Sisman, Vice Chairman of the Association of Geothermal Power Plant Investors (JESDER), said that installed geothermal power generation capacity has increased from about 25 MW in 2007 to 1,053 MW today, mostly due to supporting legislation.

Today, Turkey is no. 4 in the world when it comes to installed capacity, after the U.S., the Philippines and Indonesia. With ongoing development it could even climb higher.

At a meeting with journalists, JESDER’s Chairman says that the year could end up with 1,086 MW of installed capacity. With current capacity, electricity generated by geothermal plants meets the energy needs of around 2 million homes in Turkey.

JESDER expects that up to $1 billion will be invested into geothermal development in 2018. With an overall power generation capacity of 83,000 MW in Turkey (as of late November 2017), about 1.2% is covered by geothermal power plants.

Turkey will end 2017 with electricity production of 289 billion kilowatt hours, with geothermal energy power plants providing 6 billion kilowatt hours of that, or 2.1 percent of overall production.

Due to geothermal power, Turkey has been able to save approximately $650 million in natural gas imports through the utilisation of a national and natural resource.

Turkey has reached this point due to good government policies and strategies, and the success was achieved through a cooperation of the public and private sector.

He said all the players in the industry are locals. The chairman noted that the use of domestic parts is accompanied by additional contributions, citing that past year three to four power plants benefited from domestic product incentives.

“There was no generator, so we have made the generator investments here. In 2018, we will use the domestic generator in the geothermal industry,” Sisman said. He added that the two companies whose agreements are about to be finalized will come with domestic producers from the Netherlands and Iceland.

Sisman said the support mechanism to be implemented in the geothermal industry after 2020 needs to be announced very soon. He also stressed that it is necessary to take precautions and deploy support mechanisms today in order to ensure that plant investments that will require at least three years to be installed continue so that they can be commissioned after 2020 as well.

To participate in the geothermal development of Turkey or to learn more about the market, join the upcoming IGC Turkey geothermal conference & exhibition in Ankara/ Turkey – March 14-15, 2017.

Source: Daily Sabah