Turkey Unveils $500 Billion Energy Plan Built on Gas, Solar, Nuclear

Turkey targets total investments of $500 billion in energy infrastructure in its new energy plan to 2040, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, Alparslan Bayraktar, said on Thursday, as the country looks to boost its energy independence and eventually become energy independent.In recent years, Turkey has been paying up to $70 billion to import energy, including coal, oil, and gas.The new energy plan looks to slash the import bill while strengthening the homegrown resources, including gas in the Black Sea and a fourfold jump in installed solar and wind power capacity.Turkey aims to meet its energy needs with homegrown resources and to implement a total investment of $500 billion in its energy infrastructure by 2040, minister Bayraktar said today.Turkey plans to meet all its petroleum and natural gas consumption through domestic resources, and boost its wind and solar installed capacity fourfold to 175 gigawatts (GW) by 2040.The country looks to raise the share of renewable energy of its installed electricity-generation capacity to 77%, and build 10 GW of nuclear power capacity, the minister said.Akkuyu, Turkey’s first nuclear power plant, is currently being built by Russia’s Rosatom. With a total capacity of 4,800 MW, the nuclear power plant is expected to meet around 10% of the Turkish power demand.In the new era of mobility, Turkey will also target 20 million electric vehicles (EVs) by 2040, while policies to increase energy efficiency are expected to bring $240 billion in savings, Bayraktar said.Last year, Turkey ranked fourth in Europe in EV sales, with 190,000 fully electric vehicles sold, or 17% of total new car sales, energy think tank Ember says.The share of solar and wind in Turkey is about 22%, but coal currently remains the single biggest power-generating source with 34%, according to data by Ember.Investments in the electricity projects alone would require more than $200 billion in investment, according to Reuters calculations.By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.comMore Top Reads From Oilprice.comIndia to Require State Utilities to Add Energy Storage CapacityIEEFA: $67.8 Billion in Asian LNG Power Projects Scrapped or StalledEU Not Planning to Resume Russian Gas Purchases