Turkey is looking to raise the share of domestic, renewable sources up to two-thirds of the country's electricity production by 2023, Energy and Natural Resources Minister Fatih Dönmez said at a G20 meeting in Japan yesterday.
"Last month Turkey held an auction for wind farms that would generate 1 gigawatt (GW)," Dönmez told a session of the G20 Ministerial Meeting on Energy Transitions and Global Environment for Sustainable Growth in 2019 in Nagano.
"For a sustainable future we have to benefit from energy efficiency, as well as renewable energy, fossil fuels and nuclear power technologies," he noted.
He said in 2017, Turkey became the member of the geothermal "1 GW Club" and plans to exceed 2 GW by 2023.
"We recently announced National Energy Efficiency Action Plan sets out actions to implement a reduction of 14 percent of primary energy consumption by 2023, via a strategy which includes around $11 billion of planned investment," Dönmez said.
He stressed that Turkey also aims to benefit from vast coal reserves while paying utmost importance to the implementation of clean coal technologies.
"We attach great importance to the application of clean coal technologies. Excluding coal from the equation blocks the research and development to be made in this area," the minister said.
Dönmez said Turkey has strong will to include nuclear energy to primary energy supply starting from 2023 by commissioning the first unit of Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant.
Russia's Rosatom is constructing Turkey's first nuclear plant in the southern province of Mersin. The plant, comprising four units, each with a capacity of 1,200 megawatts (MW), will meet about 10 percent of Turkey's electricity needs once fully operational.
"I would like to emphasize one more time that baseload power sources such as nuclear and fossil fuels are necessary to increase utilization of intermittent renewable energy," the minister said and added, "Turkey values flexibility in natural gas as well. By building world-class LNG terminals including FSRUs, transmission and gas storage infrastructure investments, Turkey can provide flexibility to its region as well."
He said that just like energy resources, energy innovation also needs diversification. "We have started a startup initiative to integrate artificial intelligence (AI), IoT, cybersecurity and electric mobility faster into our energy portfolio. We are also taking important steps regarding the exploration of sources. Our hydrocarbon exploration and drilling activities have been continuing. We aim to bring our resources into the economy with the help of the private sector on a win-win basis," he said.
Energy and environment ministers of the G20 countries on Saturday gathered in Japan for the first time in the group's history. The meeting was set to conclude later yesterday. The G20's membership is made up of 19 individual countries plus the EU. The group's economies account for around 90 percent of gross world product and 80 percent of world trade.