The Turkish National Energy Plan, which was prepared within the framework of the 2053 net zero emission target, will both support economic growth and take the green energy transformation to the next level, Energy and Natural Resources Minister Fatih Dönmez said Thursday.

Dönmez shared the Turkish National Energy Plan and the Turkish Hydrogen Technologies Strategy and Roadmap with the public, saying, the country has "all the instruments that will make us a strong player in the global hydrogen market. Our target is 2053 net zero emissions."

Dönmez, who stated that they have commissioned projects such as the Trans Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) and TurkStream – two pipelines that carry Caspian and Russian gas to Turkish and European markets – in a short time, said: "We are also taking important steps toward becoming a natural gas hub. We are constantly improving our infrastructure, while maintaining an intense energy diplomacy."

He said the country will increase the number of four liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities, two of which are FSRU (Floating LNG Storage and Gasification Unit), to five with the new FSRU it will commission in Saros.

"The ship will enter our territorial waters in a very short time," he said.

Noting that they entered a new era in energy, Dönmez reiterated the essence of the National Energy and Mining Policy that was released back in 2017 was "more domestic, more renewable energy."

"Our main goal was to create an energy portfolio that respects the environment, is efficient and uses domestic technologies more with a sustainable approach. Thus, while increasing the rate of our domestic resources from year to year, we aimed to both diversify our resources and significantly reduce our energy costs."

Noting that they have added the sustainability target in the new period to the supply security, and indigenization and predictable markets targets that they have determined in the National Energy and Mining Policy, Dönmez said, "We have determined as a priority objective to increase clean energy and energy efficiency within the scope of sustainability."

Reiterating that climate change is one of the most important issues of the next century, Dönmez said, "The increased carbon emissions as a result of intensive industrialization have exceeded the limit that our planet can tolerate. Now green and renewable energy is on the agenda of the whole world."

Increase in energy consumption

Dönmez shared the goals that will take their work in renewable energy to the next level and said: "While we were preparing our action plan, we modeled the supply and demand side in detail over different scenarios. We worked with the details of the most suitable model for Türkiye."

"Accordingly, our energy consumption, which is 147.2 million tons of oil equivalent in 2020, will reach 205.3 million tons of oil equivalent in 2035 in line with Türkiye's growth targets. We foresee an increase of approximately 39.5% in our energy consumption in 12 years. Renewable energy sources, which have a 16.7% share in our primary energy consumption in 2020, will increase to 23.7% in 2035," the minister explained.

Noting that they will increase their installed electricity capacity from 95,900 megawatts to 189,700 megawatts in 2020, Dönmez said: "The highest share in this increase will of course be renewable energy resources. Some 74.3% of our capacity increase in the said period will come from renewable sources, especially solar and wind."

Dönmez underlined that they will increase the solar installed power to 52,900, the wind installed power to 29,600, the hydroelectric installed power to 35,100, and the geothermal and biomass installed power to 5,100 megawatts by 2035.

Meanwhile, the minister said of the most important investments that Türkiye will realize in line with the net zero emission target will be in the field of nuclear energy.

"In 2035, the electricity we will generate from nuclear energy will reach 11.1% of our total production," he said.

"In addition to conventional nuclear power plants, small and medium-sized modular reactors (SMR) are now on our agenda. Hopefully, we will add SMRs to our energy portfolio as well as our nuclear power plants that are under construction and planned," Dönmez added.

The Turkish government and private companies are in talks with the United States for SMRs, a report said recently.

"There is a serious interest in nuclear energy as a way to replace coal-fired power plants," Justin Friedman, senior advisor for commercial competitiveness in nuclear energy at the U.S. State Department told Bloomberg.

Friedman said that the purchase of as many as 35 SMRs are possibile as Türkiye wants to generate 20 gigawatts of electricity from nuclear energy by 2050.

Reiterating that there is a return to coal in many countries, especially in Europe, due to the energy crisis in the world recently, Dönmez said, "Our existing coal power plants will continue their production until they complete their technical and economic life in accordance with the competition rules in the market."

"Clean energy and electricity storage technologies will determine the decrease in the energy production rate of coal plants. In other words, we will carry out energy supply security and energy transformation together. Both topics will complement each other."

Hydrogen roadmap

Stating that today, mostly hydrogen is produced from coal by the gasification method and from natural gas by the steam methane reforming method, Dönmez said: "Hydrogen produced from natural gas constitutes 75% of the hydrogen produced in the world. However, these two methods, which use fossil fuels and whose outputs we define as brown and gray hydrogen, can cause large amounts of carbon emissions. For this reason, studies on green hydrogen have been increasing in recent years in the world."

Pointing out that green hydrogen has become more attractive with the development of infrastructure and decreasing production costs, Dönmez said, "The green hydrogen we obtain by using renewable energy sources through the electrolysis of water method will be an important argument for our net zero emission target. It will greatly help decarbonize energy-intensive industries such as petro-chemistry, iron and steel, cement, glass and ceramics. Producing hydrogen where it is primarily consumed in energy-intensive sectors will be more economical and much easier as it will reduce transportation and storage costs."

Türkiye looks at hydrogen as the "energy carrier of the future", Dönmez said, noting: "Work continues to mix natural gas used in final sectors with clean fuels such as hydrogen and synthetic methane in order to reach our 2053 net zero target."

"Starting from 2030 until the end of 2053, we aim to increase the mixing ratio of hydrogen to natural gas to 12% and to 30% of synthetic methane."