Turkey's electricity consumption in 2020 up 0.14 pct

ANKARA-Anadolu Agency

Turkey's electricity consumption increased year-on-year by 0.14 percent in 2020, according to data from Turkey's Electricity Transmission Corporation on Jan. 4.

The country's power consumption registered at 290.86 billion kilowatt-hours in 2020 compared to 290.45 billion kilowatt-hours in 2019.

Turkey produced 291.55 gigawatt-hours of electricity in 2020 - a production increase of 0.11 percent, up from 291.22 gigawatt-hours in 2019.

Turkey's electricity imports from neighboring countries fell by 14.47 percent, reaching 1.89 billion kilowatt-hours compared to 2.21 billion kilowatt-hours in 2019.

In addition, the country's electricity exports to neighboring countries decreased by 11.11 percent to 2.48 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity. Electricity exports in 2019 amounted to 2.79 billion kilowatt-hours.

According to official figures, the installed capacity of the country reached 94.80 gigawatts by the end of November.

Turkey aims to increase its electricity production from local and renewable resources.

Turkey's Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Fatih Dönmez said in an interview on Dec. 30, 2020, that the ratio of renewable resources in total installed power reached an all-time high at 51.21 percent and exceeded that of 21 countries in Europe.

He lauded this boost in renewable energy in 2020, which saw the country’s installed renewable power increase by 4.5 gigawatts to 95.5 gigawatts.

He noted on April 12 that solar and wind energy met 34 percent of the total production on an hourly basis, and on May 24, 90 percent of electricity generation was met from domestic and renewable resources.

"On June 5, we realized the maximum daily unlicensed generation and on Sept. 3, our electricity production exceeded 1 billion kilowatt-hours, breaking the all-time record. The month was one in which wind generated the most energy. We surpassed our record of 151.33 gigawatts on Nov. 6 with 153.04 gigawatts on Nov. 25," Dönmez said.