Star - Türkiye’s power generation sector is embracing the use of domestic energy sources, following the recent revision to the country’s investment incentive system that favors utilizing coal and lignite, both abundant in Türkiye.
Heavily dependent on imported gas to fuel its growing economy, Türkiye has taken steps to promote its vast coal reserves to foreign energy companies via changes to its investment incentives system, making the use of locally-sourced fossil fuels to fire thermal power plants - a very attractive alternative to using imported natural gas.
“Shifting the priority to using local sources in power generation has attracted foreign investors to coal fields in Konya, Eskisehir, Elbistan and Thracia.”, Turkish Miners Association’s (TMD) head Mustafa Sonmez commented on the investor reaction to the revamped incentives. “Arabic and Chinese investors are particularly interested in investing in coal-fired power plants in Türkiye. Revised incentives make Türkiye’s huge potential even more appealing in the eyes of foreign energy investors thus provide a boost to the mining sector and Turkish economy overall.”, he noted.
The expansion in Türkiye’s region-based investment incentives system grants energy investors that utilize domestic sources to generate power the right to benefit from Region-5 level support instruments, the second most beneficial in the whole regime, regardless of the actual investment location.
In January, Abu-Dhabi’s national energy company TAQA signed a cooperation deal worth USD 12 billion with Türkiye’s Electricity Generation Co.(EUAS), to jointly develop and run an electricity generation project in Elbistan, Kahramanmaras in southeastern Türkiye using lignite reserves in the region.
Türkiye plans to reach an installed capacity of 90,000 MWs in 2023, coal-fired thermal power plants are expected to constitute 8,000 to 9,000 MWs of this total.