Assessment of renewable energy potential and policy in Turkey – Toward the acquisition period in European Union

• Turkey has a geographical advantage increasing its potential on renewable energy sources.
• Turkey targets at least 30% of total electricity from renewables by 2023.
• Turkey's 2023 targets include putting 3000 MW solar and 20,000 MW wind power capacity in operation.
• The main policy priority relies on the support of local wind terminal and solar panel production.
• Turkey aims to make the energy available to consumers in a cost efficient, timely manner meeting the demand.

This paper aims to assess the renewable energy capacity of Turkey in order to consider main priorities in the energy policy of Turkey. In this paper, renewable energy potential and regulatory conditions are discussed in Turkey in comparison with European Union. The results of the study implemented within the framework of EnviroGRIDS project indicated a promising yet very susceptible future for the implementation of renewable energy power plants in Turkey. The forecasts have shown that the solar power potential utilization is becoming more significant after 2020. The projections for 2050 indicate that electricity consumption from small and medium renewable energy sources including solar and wind will constitute 15% of the total, whereas the solar thermal will constitute around 16%. Geothermal and other renewables will remain around 3%. According to the high demand scenario, in 2050 the share of hydropower in overall electricity generation will be 12%, followed by solar power at 7% and wind power at 3%. Additionally, renewable energy policy and regulations in Turkey and in EU are overviewed in this study. On the contrary to EU, the constant feed-in tariff amount does not consider capital investments of specific energy sources in Turkey that brings disadvantage to the implementation. However, new regulations published and currently applied should be accepted as milestones in acquisition period of Turkey in EU.