Turkey will have renewable energy resources zone (YEKA) tenders for 10,000 megawatts (MW) of solar and 10,000 megawatts of wind in the coming ten years, Turkey's Energy and Natural Resources Minister said Tuesday at Berlin Energy Transition Dialogue.
Albayrak said that as Turkey is the second country in the world after China in terms of energy growth demand, it will increase its energy capacity amid a process of continuous change in the sector.
Albayrak asserted that renewable energy is an important element in the changing energy sector, which will be aided by technology.
"We have seen in the last 20 years that the role of renewable energy has changed a lot and costs have dramatically fallen thanks to advanced technology," Albayrak said.
"As Turkey, in terms of the fight against climate change, for efficiency and for our love of nature, in addition to energy security, we see that renewable energy offers a number of opportunities especially for energy import dependent countries like Turkey as well as Germany," he said.
Turkey paid an average of $44 billion for energy imports per year over the last 10 years.
As part of the strategy to diversify the sector and move away from heavy reliance on imports, Turkey implemented a national energy strategy based on energy security, localization and predictability during the past two years, Albayrak explained.
"Renewable energy is one of the most significant points for energy security in our plan. We had YEKA tenders for 1,000 MW of solar and 1,000 MW of wind energy last year. German company Siemens was part of the winning consortium for a wind tender. The price per megawatt hour in the wind tender was $3.48 [a very competitive cost] and we showed the world that renewable resources could be competitive in terms of costs too," Albayrak concluded.
Turkey plans to open one solar and one offshore wind tender this year of around 1,000 megawatts each.
By Nuran Erkul Kaya
Anadolu Agency
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