A 10% increase in efficiency in electricity production and at industrial facilities reduced gas use by approximately 4 billion cubic meters (bcm), Atay Arpacıoğulları, general manager of Consus Energy, a subsidiary of Global Investment Holdings, said Sunday while underlining the importance of energy efficiency.
"This means a saving of $2.5 billion-$3 billion at today's prices," he added.
Noting that 36.2 bcm of natural gas was consumed for electricity generation and industrial purposes last year, Arpacıoğulları said that the average efficiency in Turkey in producing energy from natural gas stands at around 50%, but "this rate can reach 90% in cogeneration plants."
Speaking to Anadolu Agency (AA), Arpacıoğulları outlined the company's plans ahead of Consus Energy's initial public offering while highlighting Turkey's potential in distributed energy systems, especially in solar and cogeneration.
The company submitted its public offering applications to the Capital Markets Board of Turkey (SPK) and Borsa Istanbul Stock Exchange (BIST) last month, Arpacıoğulları said, explaining that the evaluation process is ongoing and they are waiting for approval in the coming days.
The resources to be provided in this context will pave the way for the company's sustainable growth, he said, noting: "In the next few years, we plan to significantly increase our solar energy production capacity. Within the scope of our distributed energy business line, we aim to implement solar power plants for the self-consumption of consumers with our build-operate or build-operate-transfer business model."
Explaining that they also use cogeneration and trigeneration power plants in energy distribution, Arpacıoğulları explained that these facilities can produce different forms of energy from a single source, not only producing electricity but also heating and cooling.
He stressed that by using this approach, high energy efficiency of up to 90% can be achieved in said facilities.
"It is necessary to consider cogeneration facilities as a comprehensive power plant established at the point of consumption. These power plants do not only generate electrical energy but also provide heat and cooling by being fully integrated into the production process of an enterprise," he said.
The company's top official also noted that in the company's business model, the owner of the enterprise does not undertake any risk.
"We enable them to obtain their energy without incurring the cost. As part of our build-operate business model, the savings created by these facilities, all of which are invested and financed by us and operated by us, due to their high energy efficiency, reduce the energy costs of businesses from the first day," he explained.
The total installed power of cogeneration and trigeneration power plants in Turkey stands at around 3,500 to 4,000 megawatts (MW), Arpacıoğulları said, adding that only 15% of this capacity is unlicensed, that is, power plants that produce completely for self-consumption.
Current electricity installed capacity
Arpacıoğulları said that most of the cogeneration and trigeneration power plants built on the build-operate model are realized within Consus Energy.
Stating that Turkey's current installed power, approximately 100,000 megawatts, should increase by 30% to 40% in the next 10 years, Arpacıoğulları added, "To reduce the dependency on energy imports, a significant part of the growth in installed power should consist of renewable power plants."
When we consider the uninterrupted energy needs of our industrialists, "it should be one of our primary goals to realize a significant portion of the power plants that will be built within this framework and that produce at constant load as cogeneration," he said.
"If these power plants are built in a distributed manner, they can meet the heating needs of the enterprises, and large-scale power plants can be designed for regional heating, as is practised in other countries."
Rooftop solar capacity
The total losses in the transmission and distribution network in Turkey stand at around 13%, Arpacıoğulları said, explaining that with the development of distributed power plants, it is possible to prevent a significant portion of these losses, thus reducing the average loss rate to around 7% or 8% as in developed countries.
Pointing out that there are great opportunities for renewable power plants in distributed energy, Arpacıoğulları said, "It is estimated that half of the solar power plant capacity that will come into operation worldwide in the coming years will consist of distributed facilities."
"This also gives clues for the course of our country."
Megawatts of distributed solar capacity can be installed on the roofs alone, he added.