Türkiye mobilized its first publicly owned floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU), as well as wind power plants to ensure southeastern provinces are supplied with gas and electricity after devastating earthquakes earlier this month.
On Feb. 6, magnitude 7.7 and 7.6 earthquakes struck Türkiye's southeast nine hours apart, and severely hit northern Syria, razing thousands of buildings and inflicting major damage to pipelines and other energy infrastructure.
Gas supplies were halted as authorities and companies moved to restore damaged main transmission lines and electricity networks in the disaster zone. The supply has been restarted gradually to regions dubbed safe.
At least 56,000 buildings, containing more than 225,000 homes, were either destroyed by the quakes or too damaged to be used, according to the government. The region is home to some 13.5 million, or around 15% of the country’s population.
The government and dozens of aid groups have launched a massive relief effort. The government said Wednesday that more than 5,400 shipping containers had been deployed as shelters and over 200,000 tents dispatched.
The Ertuğrul Gazi FSRU has proved to be critical, having supplied the disaster zone with gas at a time of bitterly cold weather that made rescue and humanitarian efforts difficult after the tremor.
Located in southern Hatay, one of the hardest-hit provinces, the offshore support vessel underwent examinations before it was rapidly put into operation to run at full capacity, state pipeline operator BOTAŞ said in a statement Friday.
Anchored at the port in Dörtyol, the platform itself managed to meet the gas needs of the region after the disaster by supplying 28 million cubic meters (mcm) per day, its maximum capacity, the statement said.
Adding significant flexibility to the country’s energy supply chain security, Ertuğrul Gazi boasts about 110 mcm of storage capacity. Its annual regasification capacity stands at 2.5 billion cubic meters (bcm) and can alone meet nearly 10% of Türkiye’s daily natural gas consumption.
The massive 295-meter-long (965-foot-long), 63-meter-tall vessel has pumped some 3.2 bcm of gas into the national transmission system since it was put into operation in late June 2021, BOTAŞ said.
Wind plants up and running
The quakes had taken the majority of wind power plants offline in the region, yet the industry association on Friday said a total of 21 plants were up and running.
Plants boasting an installed capacity of 962.4 megawatts (MW) spread across seven cities are now supplying uninterrupted power to earthquake-affected areas, said Ibrahim Erden, head of the Turkish Wind Energy Association (TÜREB).
Described as the "disaster of the century," the quakes caused outages to almost all wind power plants due to failures in the energy transmission lines, Erden told Anadolu Agency (AA).
However, he said that the TÜREB intervened very quickly after the first shock to maintain operations, and mobilized to help in the search and rescue mission right after the quakes.
According to TÜREB data, Hatay is the region with the most wind plants, 11 in total, with an installed capacity of 437.47 MW. The earthquake epicenter, Kahramanmaraş, has two power plants with an installed capacity of 121.5 MW that are operating at full capacity.
Wind farms with installed capacities of 33.4 MW, 65.5 MW, 11.7 MW, and 27.5 MW are operating in the provinces of Adana, Gaziantep, Malatya, and Adıyaman, respectively.
Power generation has resumed in the Osmaniye-Gaziantep region, with a capacity of 242 MW, and the Osmaniye-Kahramanmaraş region, with a capacity of 23.3 MW.
Separately, the Solar Energy Industry Association (GENSED) and the Energy Investors Association (GUYAD) this week teamed up to send approximately 12,000 solar panels to quake-hit regions.
The associations and their member companies drew up a list of equipment needed, including solar panels, inverters and batteries, for installation on the ground or on roofs in the earthquake zone, GENSED Secretary-General Hakan Erkan said.
The first delivery of 4,000 panels is planned to be sent in advance to meet the electricity needs of 1,000 containers. Four panels will be used for each shelter to generate power for lighting, partial heating, telephone chargers and A+ refrigerators.
Erkan said they were prepared to send more solar panel systems to the area given the calls from nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) on the ground for them to meet the electricity needs in the disaster zone.