Turkey's power output from gas up 21 pct due to drought

ISTANBUL-Anadolu Agency

The share of natural gas in Turkey's electricity generation grew by 21 percent last year compared to 2019, as increasing drought hindered the production capacity of the country's hydropower plants, according to a recent report by the Electricity Generators Association of Turkey.

Turkey's gross electricity generation in 2020 was 305,431 gigawatt-hours, marking an increase of 0.5 percent compared to the previous year.

In 2020, hydropower plants provided 25.6 percent of the total generation while natural gas plants supplied 22.7 percent, imported coal plants generated 22.3 percent while wind, solar and geothermal plants generated 15 percent and lignite plants produced 12.5 percent. The remaining 1.9 percent of the generation came from other fuels like fuel-oil and bioenergy.

The decreasing rainfall levels in the last months of 2020 led to a 21 percent year-on-year increase in generation from natural gas power plants but a 12.1 percent year-on-year decrease from hydropower plants.

The amount of water in major basin dams dropped by around 27 percent to 58.5 billion cubic meters (bcm) in 2020 from 80.4 bcm in 2019.

The drought was more tangible in the last three months of the year. During the October-December period, electricity generation from hydropower plants dropped further by 20.3 percent compared to the same period in 2019.

Leading to rise in gas imports and consumption

Power generation from natural gas rose by 48.2 percent between October and December compared to the same period in 2019 due to the drought.

The growing share of natural gas in power generation led to increases in natural gas imports and consumption. The country's natural gas imports increased by 28 percent to 4.04 bcm in October 2020 compared to the same month of 2019, according to Energy Market Regulatory Authority (EMRA) data.

Natural gas power plants consumed 1.45 bcm of the total 3.58 bcm of natural gas consumption during this month, marking an 85.5 percent increase compared to the same month of 2019.

Gas consumption from these plants in November 2020 amounted to 1.46 bcm out of total consumption of 4.6 bcm, marking a 59 percent increase in gas consumption from plants relative to the same month of 2019.

In 2020, Turkey's electricity generation from wind, solar and geothermal increased by 14.9 percent compared to 2019. This share reached 22.2 percent during the October-December period.

On the other hand, generation from lignite power plants decreased by 18.6 percent, although the share from imported coal plants increased by 3.2 percent last year compared to the previous year.