A string of power outages on Monday across Turkey prompted concerns, hours before the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources made a statement blaming the disruptions on excessive electricity use. The outages lasted about three hours and covered a large area from districts of Istanbul to Antalya in the south, the capital Ankara, the country's third-largest province Izmir and industrial hub Kocaeli. Electricity distribution companies released statements one after another, citing “maintenance” on electricity transmission lines and other “glitches.”
The ministry said in a statement that the electricity was “partially disrupted” due to temperatures rising above seasonal norms. It added that emergency crews had been deployed in affected areas and power resumed shortly. The statement explained that electricity demand rose due to temperatures. “Turkey has reached record levels of electricity consumption in its history in recent weeks. Our national electricity infrastructure work in maximum capacity for electricity generation to meet the rising demand,” the statement said.
Sabah newspaper reported that the average electricity consumption per hour is rarely above 50,000 megawatts but it has reached 53,000 megawatts in recent days. Overall, the daily demand for electricity exceeded 1 billion kilowatts per hour. Last month, the highest daily demand was above 1.9 billion kilowatts per hour, on July 30. The country’s main electricity supplier Turkish Electricity Transmission Corporation (TEIAŞ) was forced to cut off the electricity being sent to private-run electricity distribution companies due to high demand. Some industrial zones housing factories have seen their power decreased, to increase electricity going to residential areas.
More disruptions are expected, up until September, in electricity supply in parallel with extreme temperatures, which also decrease the power generating capacity of wind turbines.
