Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Conference- TebaNews


Conference of Turkey's Current Energy Issues-2006

TEBANEWS- 1286- Ankara 11 Dec 2006

Energy Affairs General Director Mr. Budak Dilli: "We have prepared the grounds for renewable energy resources. serious investors can see these and the make the investments. those who wants more incentives do not make investments."

World Energy Council Turkish national Committee Secretary General Mr. Omer UNVER: "The closed nuclear option in the world has started to re-open. Turkey must definitely start to generate nuclear energy."


Ankara- The Conference on "Turkey's Current Energy Issues 2006" as organised by the Middle East Technical University (METU) Alumni Association was held at METU Alumni Premises on December 7th, 2006 Thursday evening.

Speaking in the Conference, World Energy Council Turkish National Committee Secretary General Mr. Omer UNVER said that the Afsin Elbistan big reserves of lignite basin has been known as a very huge potential since 1970s, but it has been blamed and purposely neglected intentionally due to political purposes, and that the realisation of the thermal power plant project had been long prevented with influence of foreign forces as well. Stating that there is no similar favourable environment for building new thermal power plants in the world, Unver continued; "China and India are absorbing the available steel in the market. Large scale other thermal power plant investments are being carried out elsewhere in Europe and the USA. Therefore, Turkey has entered into a difficult period to attract new investments". UNVER also indicated that existing Thermal Power Plants are not running properly in Turkey. EUAS is not/ cannot perform their regular periodic maintenance, there is no money allocated. Moreover there is nobody to provide thermal power plant maintenance services in the Local Turkish market. The long-past closed Nuclear Energy option in the world has been reactivated. Turkey must definitely start to build new nuclear Power Plants and generate Nuclear energy."

Energy Affairs General Director Mr. Budak Dilli: "Liberalisation is intended to ensure security of electricity supply in the local market.

The Ministry of Energy and Natural resources (MENR) Energy Affairs General Director said that Turkey was 72 percent energy depended on imports as far as primary energy resources were concerned and that the demand for energy will double by the year 2020. Stating the demand for electricity has grown by 8.2 percent annually as of end- November 2006, Mr. Dilli pointed out : "Demand Growth gained pace again. If there is a capacity to maintain annual electricity growth in a sustainable manner, then Turkey's electricity demand growth will continue."

Supplying further information about the generation of renewable energy resources, Mr. Budak Dilli informed that MENR were planning to increase the use of renewable energy resources by 6 percent each forthcoming year ahead. he continued "By year 2020, we will keep renewable energy generation share in overall generation at a ratio of 25 percent."

Stating that there is a 129 billion kWh hydropower potential, Mr. Dilli indicated that this hydropower potential was not being utilised properly at the desired level. He continued: " There has been a significant rise in Thermal power plant electricity generation after 1990. Turkey's hydro regime is not stable. While we managed to generate 23 billion kWh electricity from hydro resources in year 2000, then we generated 46 billion kWh in year 2004 with almost the same infrastructure with the same hydro electric power plant dams. These are dependent on annual rainfall which we all know that it is not stable. You can make significant hydropower dam investments, which would correspond to high level of investment costs as compared with the installed power capacity, on the other hand the energy yield would not be as high as thermal power plant electricity generation. By the year 2023, Turkey will be using almost all her hydro power potential."

Energy Affairs General Director Mr. Budak Dilli further stated that security of electricity supply had always been the priority in Turkey's energy policies, and he continued; " Liberalisation is intended to ensure security of supply. In order to ensure security of supply, import dependency has to be reduced, and local resources must be used more intensively and new resources have to be explored. Certain resources may not be economical today, but they may be used in future."

Stating that the use of renewable energy resources for electricity generation purposes must be given incentives. He continued that "the Incentives provided in the new Renewable Energy Resources Laws provided satisfactory incentives for the new investments. However, the investments have not reached to the desired level at this time under the law. If the investors who hurried and made license applications with an amazing total capacity of 5,000 MWe after the adoption of the Law, and they are still asking for more new incentives, and waiting for security of supply to be at stake and reap state guarantees in such an environment, this will be a very incorrect approach. MENR have prepared the grounds for new renewable energy resources. serious investors can see these and make the investments. Those who want more incentives do not make investments."

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Dear Colleagues
On 7th December 2006 Thursday evening, we had a Panel on "Current
Energy Issues of Turkey". I was in charge as Moderator. I arrived to
ODTU Alumni premises at about 1700 hours. Panelists were reputable
engineers and academicians with experience. I welcomed the panelists at the main entrance, took them to our popular left end corner in our Bar56 bar, assisted them to load their PowerPoint presentations into our main laptop PC on the panel table. We had 300 seats all occupied at 1900 hours. I made a profile evaluation by asking some questions asking audience to raise their
hands, such as - students, graduates, those in business, those in energy business, those in the university, those favoring nuclear power plants, those who are against etc. We had a open buffet for tea- coffee and cookie services, I also added some bottles of quality wine so that that may help audience to have a better feeling after work hours. We started at 1900 hours with seniority of graduation year, each speaker to speak 30 minutes. After the third speaker we had 15 minutes of tea break, smokers to outdoors for smoking. I hosted panelists again in bar56, tea, coffee, soda/water as they wish.
Six panelists evaluated the current energy problems of Turkey, mainly Afsin- Elbistan power plant, Nuclear, renewables, lignite, coal, ILISU hydropower plants and others. I asked the audience to ask their questions in written. We had almost 2-3 questions for each speaker, good rating for them. I feel that it was a very good panel. Audience were very happy. We adjourned the panel at about 2330, I was very tired, my son Aydin drove me home.
I got tired but next morning I felt the happiness of one who accomplished his job properly. This week I have been informed that magazines TebaHaber, AnbaHaber, EkoEnerji had preperations to report the event exclusively. Please feel free to post your comments.

7:14 PM  

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