Renewable energy during Covid-19 pandemic in Turkey

Abstract

Global renewable energy power including solar, wind, biomass, hydropower, and geothermal are increasing very fastly. With respect to global environmental issues, Turkey’s carbon dioxide emissions have grown along with its energy consumption. States have played a leading role in protecting the environment by reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. In this regard, renewable energy resources appear to be the one of the most efficient and effective solutions for sustainable energy development in Turkey. Turkey’s geographical location has several advantages for extensive use of most of these clean energy sources. Electricity demand of the country has experienced great fluctuations due to the measures taken to prevent the Covid-19 pandemic. The effect of the measures taken in this context to slow down the economic activity was also seen in electricity demand as of the end of the year. Turkey has been one of the countries that was least affected by the pandemic with an increase of 0.8% in electricity demand. Structural arrangements that we have made in recent years to encourage the use of renewable energy sources instead of imported sources in electricity production continued to show their results despite the developments experienced during and as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic in the markets. In this context, the share of renewable energy sources was 55.4% in total electricity installed power in 2020, increased to 53% in 2021. This study shows that there is enough renewable energy potential in Turkey for electricity generation. Especially hydropower, biomass, solar and wind are very well.