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Speaker
H.E. Alparslan Bayraktar
Minister of Energy and Natural Resources of the Republic of Türkiye
Event transcript
Uncorrected transcript, translated from Turkish
ALPARSLAN BAYRAKTAR: Distinguished guests, distinguished representatives of the Atlantic Council, distinguished participants, ladies and gentlemen. I would like to start by expressing my pleasure to be here with you all at the Regional Conference on Clean and Secure Energy organized by the Atlantic Council.
Distinguished guests: climate change, the pandemic, supply chain disruptions, high energy and commodity prices, rising capital costs and high inflation that is felt on a global scale, geopolitical risks and vulnerabilities, especially in our region, and regional conflicts are just a few of the current risks we face. Moreover, as we face all these challenges, there is also the task ahead of us: for the world economy to return to a carbon-neutral state by 2050. Therefore, we obviously face a very challenging energy transformation process.
For a successful energy transformation, and for us to be successful in this process, we need to develop more rational policies, implement these policies with determination, maximize our cooperation in line with the purpose of this gathering, and realize the necessary investments. However, in this aforementioned multi-risk environment, policy inconsistencies, uncertainties, and stop-starts all frankly have an extremely negative impact on the investment climate.
Considering this environment, what are we doing as Türkiye? What are our challenges, our priorities, our energy policies, and our energy transformation roadmap? One of them is addressing the increase in our energy demand. Türkiye is a country whose energy demand increases every year. When we look at energy demand over the last two decades, our demand for electricity and natural gas has tripled. We anticipate that this will continue to increase for the coming period. Our electricity demand forecast for 2035 is 510 terawatt-hours, but I believe this will be easily exceeded. Artificial intelligence, the additional energy requirements by big data, the transformation of transportation especially within the context of energy transformation, and electric vehicles will take this demand much higher. In addition, we need to meet these increasing needs to match our growing population, growing economy, urbanization, and regional developments. Of course, we need to meet this increasing demand with more affordable costs—costs that our consumers and citizens can afford.
Although there has been a significant decline in recent years, the second issue for the Turkish energy market is our dependence on foreign energy imports—our dependence on imported energy resources. Unfortunately, this is ongoing.
Consequently, as Türkiye, we are trying to implement a multidimensional, multilayered and unique energy strategy. We believe that in order to successfully achieve our decarbonization targets, our policies and regulatory framework must be more adaptive, more comprehensive, more flexible, more rational, and in line with new digital technologies. As Türkiye, we are focusing on five main areas in our long-term energy planning to achieve this decarbonization goal. These are, of course, renewable energy, which is one of the main topics of this conference; energy efficiency; nuclear energy; the role of natural gas as a transition fuel; and mining for the energy transformation.
Distinguished guests, today in Türkiye, renewable energy resources constitute more than half of our installed capacity. In this sense, Türkiye ranks fifth in Europe and eleventh in the world in renewable energy. We have identified renewable energy as the area of development and the area with the highest potential for our country until 2053, the date we set our net-zero emission target. For this reason, we will continue to support renewable energy projects in many different ways and methods, from small rooftop systems to large-scale projects. We have a very ambitious renewable energy program that will cover the next twelve years, that is, until 2035. In renewable installed capacity, we want to add five thousand megawatts of solar and wind capacity to our existing installed capacity every year. In other words, over the next twelve years, or by 2035, we want to increase our installed solar and wind capacity, which is currently thirty thousand megawatts, to ninety thousand megawatts.
In the next few days, we aim to share with you, our public, Türkiye’s Renewable Energy Strategy for 2035. We will likely publish it on the twenty-first of this month for the Turkish public and the international community.
While we continue to mobilize of all our potential in the field of renewable energy, we are of course aware of the fact that, unfortunately, renewable energy sources are also intermittent energy sources. Consequently, we consider the sources that will provide us with a reliable base load to be extremely important. In this sense, renewable energy is definitely one of the important areas that Türkiye should include in its energy mix and energy portfolio. And as you all know, we are currently building our first nuclear reactors. Four nuclear reactors are being built at the same time in Mersin Akkuyu. Because four reactors are being built simultaneously, the nuclear construction site in Mersin Akkuyu is the largest nuclear power plant construction site in the world. The progress of the first reactor here is over 90 percent complete, and hopefully by 2025 we will produce the first carbon-free electricity from this plant. By 2028 we will have commissioned the remaining three reactors. Through this, we will be able to meet 10 percent of Türkiye’s electricity needs from this plant and save Türkiye thirty-five million tons of carbon emissions per year. Of course, Akkuyu is not the only project we are targeting—we are also aiming to reach a total energy capacity of twenty thousand megawatts, which Türkiye has set as a target in its long-term energy plan for 2050. Of course, we want to achieve this not only with conventional, large-scale power plants, like the power plants we are considering in Sinop and Thrace, but also with small modular reactors that will enable us to reach a power capacity of at least five thousand megawatts.
Distinguished guests, with the First National Energy Efficiency Action Plan that we put into practice in 2017, we have reduced our energy consumption in primary energy by approximately 14 percent between 2017 and 2023. In this sense, energy efficiency is an area with great potential. During the implementation period of this action plan, both the public and private sectors have invested around $8.5 billion in Türkiye, allowing a reduction of seventy million tons of carbon emissions. This has also opened the door to forty-five thousand new green jobs. In January this year, I announced Türkiye’s Second National Energy Efficiency Action Plan for 2024-2030. In the coming period, we aim to make investments of approximately twenty billion dollars, together with the public private sector. Along with these investments, we will also reduce our energy intensity. Our energy consumption will be 16 percent lower than the base scenario, and we will reduce carbon emissions by one hundred million tons per month. Overall our target is that by 2040, Türkiye will save $46 billion through increased energy efficiency.
Dear guests, while integrating more renewable and intermittent resources into our system, we should not ignore natural gas. Natural gas also plays an important role in integrating more renewables. Natural gas is also important for our cities to have better quality air. As Türkiye, we are the fourth largest natural gas market in Europe, with our consumption exceeding fifty billion cubic meters. In order to establish a secure supply of natural gas and ensure diversification, we have increased the capacity of our gasification terminals. We have increased our gasification capacity five times in the last eight years. Beyond capacity increases to FSRUs and other facilities, we have increased our underground storage capacities, and we have made very important investments in natural gas infrastructure in many areas, including international pipeline projects. Thanks to this, Türkiye has gained the capability to purchase at least half of the natural gas it consumes annually as LNG.
Additionally, we continue to focus on all areas of the value chain in natural gas. We are implementing important programs, especially on the upstream side: on natural gas exploration and production. Consequently, in 2020, we made the largest natural gas discovery in the history of the Republic of Türkiye in the Black Sea. 2020 was the year of the pandemic, and it was the largest discovery in the seas in the world. After just a short period of time, we are now already producing natural gas for 2.6 million households. Of course, we aim to increase our production in the Black Sea fields and Sakarya gas field. In the first quarter of next year, we will reach a daily production of ten million cubic meters, and with the floating production platform that we recently brought to our country, we will reach a production of twenty million cubic meters in 2026. Soon, Türkiye will realize an annual production of 7.5 billion cubic meters, but our targets in the Sakarya gas field are much beyond this, what I have shared with you are the targets for the next two years.
While we carry out all these works, including infrastructure investments and upstream investments for energy security, we also make important contributions to the supply security of our region, especially Southeastern Europe. As of today, Türkiye has natural gas export agreements with Bulgaria, Romania, and Serbia. Because Türkiye has the infrastructure to supply more than the fifty billion cubic meters of gas that I mentioned earlier, and because it has the infrastructure to buy more gas, it has the capacity to transfer excess gas that it does not need to European markets and countries that are in serious need of gas. In 2024, we have also started to more intensively realize long-term LNG agreements, especially in our supply portfolio, where our supply portfolio predominantly includes piped gas. For natural gas, the United States has become Türkiye’s most important LNG supplier. The share of American LNG in the Turkish market has increased considerably, especially over the last five or six years, thanks to our infrastructure investments, and the fact that American LNG is highly competitive. In order to supply more natural gas, especially to Southeastern European countries, we need to increase our interconnection capacity with Bulgaria and Greece. I would like to express that we, as Türkiye, are and will be present in the investments to be made in this regard. I believe that it will make a significant contribution to both the supply security of this region and the diversification of gas.
Dear friends, today the mining sector has become critical to the production of clean energy technologies such as electric vehicles, wind turbines, batteries, and solar panels. In this sense, rare earth elements or critical minerals deserve special attention for their important role in electrical and electronic components and industrial processes. In Eskisehir, in the middle of Anatolia, we have discovered the world’s second-largest single field-reserve of rare earth elements, and in cooperation with our national mining company Eti Maden, we aim to develop this field with a value-added, high-standard mining approach. We believe that critical raw materials should not be a source of conflict, but a tool for regional and global cooperation. This is why Türkiye recently joined the Mineral Security Partnership Forum, which aims to enhance international cooperation. We held our first meeting in the United States a few days ago.
Distinguished guests, without transmission—without a strong transmission infrastructure, it is not possible to talk about a successful energy transition. For this reason, we need to strengthen our infrastructure, especially considering the sixty thousand megawatts of solar and wind, and of course offshore wind and geothermal resources that we will add to our installed capacity over the next twelve years. We need to increase our existing electricity grid in conjunction with our neighbors such as Georgia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Greece. Similarly, in natural gas, and we need to strengthen our interconnection capacities. Therefore, one of the issues that we will focus on in the coming period, and where we will have many areas of cooperation, is transmission infrastructure and the investments required. We will share more details publicly in Türkiye’s Renewable Energy Development Strategy Program, which we will release in the coming days. In addition to this, we aim to expand the scope of EPIAS, our energy exchange, to new areas, including emission trading. This is important for Türkiye to become a carbon pricing country in 2026, especially as Türkiye enters the European Union market, which is our largest export market. We aim to realize this by establishing a carbon market within EPIAS. Likewise, we also aim for EPIAS, which is relocating to the Istanbul Finance Center, to become a commodity exchange.
Distinguished guests, it is important that our energy transition and energy security efforts are carried out in cooperation and together. This is necessary for us to achieve success. As you know, issues such as energy planning, capacity building, uninterrupted supply of energy, modernization of grid infrastructure, development of global storage capacity, and the importance of diversified and sustainable supply chains are of great importance. These issues were greatly emphasized at the G20 meetings held in Brazil last week, as well as at the G20 energy ministers meetings. We can successfully achieve the critical process of the energy transformation through deepening cooperation in this field.
As Türkiye, we are determined to have a better, cleaner, and more sustainable energy future for everyone, and our determination and will are very strong in this regard. With these feelings and thoughts, I hope that this conference will be successful, and I greet you all with respect and love.
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Further reading
Image: Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar speaks at the Atlantic Council Regional Conference on Clean and Secure Energy on October 9, 2024.
