Hydropower licenses reign in 2011

ANKARA - Anatolia News Agency

The number of hydropower licenses amount to 150 surpassing that of natural gas power plants, official figures show. Hürriyet photo

Some 150 hydropower plant licenses were granted last year, Turkey’s energy watchdog said in a report yesterday while noting that natural gas continued to shoulder a significant load in power production.

There were only 60 new licenses for natural gas plants, but they possessed a capacity of 6,332 megawatts, much higher than the 1,841-megawatt capacity offered by the hydroelectric plants, according to the Electricity Market Development Report 2011 from the Energy Market Regulatory Authority (EPDK).

The total number of new licenses in 2011 was 351 with nearly 12,530 megawatts of installed capacity.

The report showed that power production and consumption were on par with each other as of 2011. Installed power capacity and peak demand increased 8.9 percent and 8.2 percent, respectively, according to an average over the last 10 years. Meanwhile, power production and consumption increased 9.1 percent and 9 percent respectively.

Some 45 percent of power production in Turkey in 2011 was generated by natural gas. Hydro, lignite and imported coal power plants respectively accounted for 23 percent, 17 percent and 10 percent of the production share.