Hydropower in Turkey: Analysis in the view of Vision 2023

Turkey is a recently developed country, a regional power in the Middle East and an economic powerhouse of the region. Turkey's electricity demand is continuously increasing due to fast economic growth coupled with the country's vibrant young population. It is envisaged that this demand would keep on increasing almost exponentially in the next decade according to the recently avowed Vision 2023 agenda. According to which, the Turkish government ambitiously wants to provide 30.0% of the country's electricity demand from renewable energy sources by 2023. Turkey has vast renewable energy potential including hydro, geothermal, solar and wind. However, historically there is only one playmaker that is hydropower. Thus a detailed review of the current status and future prospects of Turkish hydropower market is urgently needed to generate a roadmap for the Vision 2023 agenda. This paper was intended to provide that vital information. Currently, more than 25.0% or 57.5 TWh of the country's electricity demand is supplied from hydropower. According to official projections this would increase to approximately 116.0 TWh in 2023. In this study, hydropower's supply rate of Turkey's annual electricity demand was assessed based on the official projections and a forecast was generated. Results showed that between 22.0% and 27.0% of Turkey's annual electricity demand should be supplied from hydropower in 2023. Therefore, between 22.5 TWh and 45.0 TWh of electricity should be generated from renewable energy sources other than hydropower to provide a total of 30.0% renewable energy based electricity generation in 2023.