Turkey increased its electricity production from local and renewables sources in the first half of 2019 to 66.2% compared to 50.8% for the same period last year, according to data from the Energy and Natural Resources Ministry on Wednesday.
Turkey produced 141.64 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in the first half of this year, of which 93.77 billion kilowatt-hours came from local and renewable energy resources.
The biggest share of these resources came from hydroelectric power plants at 35.77%.
Out of total production, local coal realized 16.94%, wind produced 7.25%, and 6.26% came from geothermal, solar and biomass sources.
Imported resources amounted to a 33.8% share in Turkey's electricity production in the first half. From the imported resources, the share of natural gas fell to 16% compared to 29% for the first half of last year.
The highest share of domestic resources used for electricity production was in May at 75%. Imports had the largest share of production in February, with 44.54% recorded during the month.
- Imports decrease by 20%
In the first half of this year, 141.1 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity were consumed. During the same period last year, the figure reached 141.9 billion kilowatt-hours.
In the first half of 2019, 989.4 million kilowatt-hours of electricity was imported, while in the first half of last year, this figure was calculated as 1.23 billion kilowatt-hours - an almost 20% reduction.
Electricity exports in the first six months of 2019 compared to the same period in 2018 showed an increase of 18%. Over this period, 1.61 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity were exported. Last year, this figure was 1.36 billion kilowatt-hours.
Turkey's installed power capacity reached 90 gigawatts.
By Murat Temizer
Anadolu Agency
energy@aa.com.tr