More energy investments required

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

Köktaş says Turkey needs $210-$250 in energy investments in 20 years. AA photo

Turkey needs to make a further $210-250 billion investment in electricity production, the head of the national Energy Market Regulator (EPDK) Hasan Köktaş said yesterday at “The Changing World and Developing Energy Market of Turkey,” conference in Istanbul.

Köktaş said that in the best case scenario, Turkey would need to invest an additional $210-250 billion towards electricity production centers over the next 20 years. In the worst case scenario this would amount to 735 billion KWH and in the best case scenario 886 billion KWH.

For Turkish industrialists to be competitive with the rest of the world, they need to have access to lower-priced energy resources, explained Köktaş. With this in mind, the focus should be on renewable energy sources that are not dependent on petrol prices and exchange rate fluctuations, he added.

Meanwhile, the President of the Istanbul Chamber of Industrialists (ISO) Tanıl Küçük, speaking at the same conference, said Turkey was “dependent on energy imports to a great extent.”

According to Küçük, Turkey’s rapid economic growth and energy imports dependency comes with some risks. “The current situation in the energy market brings some economic and political risks.” Like Köktaş, Küçük argued that Turkey has to launch and implement sustainable long-term energy projects.

“We should focus more on local and alternative energy sources,” he said, noting that firms based in Turkey “could increase competitiveness by diversifying their energy sources.”