Energy Ministry selects sites for first offshore YEKA

ANKARA

The Energy Ministry has announced that it selected four regions as potential sites for offshore wind power Renewable Energy Resource Area (YEKA).

Those sites include the locations in the Bandırma, Bozcaada, Gelibolu and Karabiga regions.

It also identifies nine locations - six in the Central Anatolian province of Konya and three in the province of Sivas - as potential sites for onshore YEKA as well as two sites in the provinces of Çorum and Şanlıurfa for solar YEKA.

YEKA are the areas where electricity generation plants based on wind and/or solar energy resources can be established in large installed powers with economic potential.

Türkiye is investing heavily in renewables as well as oil and natural gas exploration and production to reduce its dependence on imported energy.

Last year, the country’s electricity consumption grew by 1.2 percent from 2021 to 329 TWh.

Power consumption is projected to rise to more than 380 TWh in 2025, rising further to 455 TWh in 2030 and 511 TWh in 2035.

Türkiye aims to increase the share of renewable energy within its installed capacity to 65 percent by the year 2035, Energy and Natural Resources Minister Alparaslan Bayraktar said last month.

“To achieve this, we will put into operation 3,000 MW of solar energy each year, 1,500 MW of wind energy, and a total of 5,000 MW of offshore wind energy for the next 12 years,” the minister said.

Türkiye boosted its installed capacity to 104,904 MW as of June, according to the data from the Energy Ministry.

Some 55 percent of Türkiye’s installed capacity is composed of renewable energy sources, with wind and solar making up of 11 percent and 9.7 percent of total, respectively.

There were more than 12,100 power plants, including 751 hydropower, 362 wind, 63 geothermal and more than 10,000 solar, in the country as of June.