Turkey plans to invest $500 billion in energy infrastructure by 2040, aiming to reduce its reliance on imported fuel and expand domestic production, Energy and Natural Resources Minister Alparslan Bayraktar said Thursday. The plan includes a fourfold increase in wind and solar capacity and a 10-gigawatt nuclear power target.
Turkey has paid as much as $70 billion a year for imported coal, oil and gas in recent years. Under the new plan, it aims to cover all petroleum and natural gas consumption with domestic resources, including gas from the Black Sea, and to raise installed wind and solar capacity to 175 gigawatts (GW) by 2040.
Renewables are expected to account for 77% of installed electricity-generation capacity. The plan also calls for 10 GW of nuclear power. Russia’s Rosatom is building Akkuyu, Turkey’s first nuclear power plant, which will have a total capacity of 4,800 megawatts and is expected to meet about 10% of the country’s electricity demand.
Turkey also aims to have 20 million electric vehicles on the road by 2040. Bayraktar said energy-efficiency policies could generate $240 billion in savings. Last year, the country ranked fourth in Europe for electric-vehicle sales, with 190,000 fully electric vehicles sold, equal to 17% of new-car sales, according to energy think tank Ember.
Solar and wind currently provide about 22% of Turkey’s electricity, while coal remains the largest single power source at 34%, Ember data show. Electricity projects alone would require more than $200 billion in investment, according to Reuters calculations.
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