Ruling AKP working on restructuring electricity bill debts

ANKARA 

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is working on an omnibus bill on energy that will include provisions to restructure electricity bill debts and incentives for hydrogen investments.

After the privatization of electricity distribution grids, the government could not collect receivables from consumers amounting to 1.6 billion Turkish Liras ($82 million). Total debt accrued up until 2006, when the country completed the privatization of the electricity distribution market had stood at 6 billion liras, but a 1.6 billion liras portion of that amount could have not yet been collected.

Some 1 billion liras of the uncollected debt are related to agricultural irrigation, while the remaining 600 million liras belong to individuals who have died and could not be located. Electricity bill debt of dwellings will also be restructured, senior AKP officials said.

Under the new legislation, those debts will either be canceled or restructured within three years, daily Milliyet reported.

The new bill is also designed to lay the legal ground for hydrogen investments and offer incentives to investors to operate in this field, as well as adopting the EU model.

AKP officials note that hydrogen has become an alternative renewable energy source to partially replace natural gas, adding that the EU is allocating 250 billion euros for this transition.

They said European countries are presently blending 20 percent hydrogen into the gas grid and that the target is to do the same in Türkiye.

Foreign companies are showing strong interest in Türkiye’s potential to export green hydrogen, they said.

“Türkiye can easily adapt to and manage this transformation and has the potential to become a major player,” they added.