Solar hopes, electrification and melting glaciers
New analysis spells out how to reach energy independence (and a majority of the public seem on board!)
Hello dear Turkey Roasters,
I’m back after a break, and ready to share some news with you!
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Without further ado, let’s start exploring developments from the past week.
Solar hopes
Half of Turkey’s power is generated by imported fossil fuels but a recent Ember analysis revealed that the figure could be halved over the next eight years - if there is adequate political will.
To achieve this leap to a cleaner energy future, solar power capacity would have to reach 40GW (up from 8.8GW today), accompanied by 30GW of wind power capacity (nearly three times the current 11.1GW).
And how can this be achieved?
This would require quadrupling the annually installed solar power capacity to 4GW from 1GW - which is actually more possible than it sounds.
Ember points out that even domestic solar PV manufacturing capacity is sufficient to achieve twice the desired amount, whereas solar auctions attract over ten times the current annually added capacity.
In the meantime, around 2.5GW of new wind power capacity should be added every year - up from the current 1GW.
When these new solar and wind capacities are added to the system, they’ll account for over a third of the country’s total power, Ember said. Here’s a graph that sums it up nicely.
You can read the insight here.
By the way, a pivot to renewables to secure energy independence is surely not a novel idea, but something the majority of Turkish public also supports.
According to a recent research by the public opinion polling company KONDA and the green energy news platform Temiz Enerji, some 64% of the population is ‘very concerned’ about import dependence in energy. Importantly, some 71% see solar power as the solution, whereas some 64% point to wind power.
The public thinks renewables are not only important for energy security, but are also good business: some 56% think solar and/or wind power should be used as a shield from fluctuating prices. Around 69% believe shifting from coal to renewables would reduce energy bills.
Then the next question arises: if they were to pick, what would they prioritize, clean and secure energy or lower bills?
According to the study, half the society is actually willing to pay more for solar and wind. Moreover, 55% name energy dependence as Turkey’s biggest problem. High energy costs come second, with some 30% of respondents naming it as the leading issue.
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Electrification
Turkey’s postal service provider PTT aims to have an 80% electric fleet by 2030, Anadolu Agency reported. PTT Director Hakan Gülten explained that electric vehicles have so far reduced costs eightfold as maintenance and fuel expenses are considerably lower.
That said, lack of adequate infrastructure stands in the way of a fast transition. ‘We know full well how to distribute fossil fuel-based vehicles, but we are still in the learning phase with electric cars,’ Gülten said, adding this was a matter of technological and infrastructural development.
Indeed, most of Turkey’s charging stations are clustered in its three largest cities, Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir. Istanbul is home to a third of these stations, according to Euronews.
Currently, all of the country’s 81 provinces have charging stations (as displayed in the map here), but the number of stations - some 3457 by the end of 2021 - is still grossly inadequate.
Distribution is a tricky question - and not only for Turkey. Even in the EU, only two countries (the Netherlands and Germany) are home to a stunning half of all charging units. According to this story, the Netherlands has 1600 times more charging stations than Cyprus, the country at the far bottom of the list with merely 57 charging points.
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Melting glaciers
Meanwhile in southeastern Turkey, experts are warning against the imminent disappearance of the glaciers of Mount Cilo, online climate news portal iklimhaber reported.
It took the past 31 years for nearly half of the ice in the country’s largest glacial valley to melt, and experts predict that nothing will remain of the ice floe within the next 50 to 60 years.
According to this 2015 article by NASA, over half of Turkey’s ice cover has vanished since the 1970s.
‘As an alpinist frequenting these mountains for at least the past 20 years, and documenting the ice loss for the past 10 years, I can say this: the lake on our left has grown by about a fifth whereas the glaciers were at least 10 times larger,’ photographer and mountaineer Hacı Tansu told Yeşil Gazete.
‘Higher up are the Gevya Shin and Mergan glaciers which used to be adjacent. Now there is half a kilometer of space between them, and global warming is the primary reason.’
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This is all for now!
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- Selin