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The natural gas plants’ share in total electricity production fell to a record low of 7% as of April 21 from 10% in March, and it was down to 3% on a daily basis, according to Asik.
Production at coal-fired plants also declined but the hydro and wind plants’ share in total of electricity output was up thanks to precipitation and wind conditions, Asik said.
The total amount of coal delivered to thermal power plants in Turkey fell to 5.82mn tonnes in February from 7.22mn tonnes a year ago, Hurriyet Daily News reported.
The latest “Tracking Covid-19 impact on economy via electricity consumption” report by Ankara-based think-tank TEPAV ​showed​ on April 21 that electricity consumption in Turkey declined by 22% y/y in the week that started on April 13, compared to a 17% y/y contraction a week ago.
Since the last week of March, electricity consumption in Turkey has declined at an accelerating pace for four consecutive weeks.
TEPAV also observed a 32% y/y decline in the electricity consumption of Italy in the week beginning April 13 versus 11% y/y and 10% y/y declines in Spain and Germany, respectively.
Feed-in-tariff hiked​. On April 18, the EPDK hiked the feed-in-tariff under the Renewable Energy Support Mechanism (YEKDEM) programme to TRY228 per MWh for unsold electricity produced by wind and hydropower projects in the first 10 years of their operations from TRY140 in March.
It is expected that YEKDEM, which applies to all plants built until the end of 2020, will be replaced by another scheme, likely purchase guarantees at a lower price, an unnamed industry source told Reuters in February.
There is presently a rush to bring online an additional 3.7GW of capacity before YEKDEM expires, Asik told BloombergHT on April 20.
Seven geothermal plant construction projects to provide a total capacity of 100MW, which were planning to benefit from YEKDEM, have been halted due to interruptions in equipment imports, Ufuk Senturk, head of the Geothermal Power Plant Investors Association (JESDER), told Anadolu on April 9.
In March, a total of 817 facilities with a total installed capacity of 21GW received TRY4.6bn support under YEKDEM, Daily Sabah reported.
What to do with this much electricity? ​In December, a lawmaker from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) lashed out at the government’s energy policy. The MP said that it encourages the construction of power plants that the country does not need.
Over the past five years, a total of 214 hydropower plants have gone operational in Turkey, but the country plans to build 261 more such facilities in coming years.
Turkey also plans to construct 180 wind power plants and 21 geothermal power plants.
Since 2014, 90 wind power plants and 51 geothermal power plants have come online.
The first turbine installed at Ilisu Dam on the Tigris River in southern Turkey has ​gone​ operational.
54​ TURKEY Country Report​ June 2020 ​ ​www.intellinews.com