Turkey's electricity consumption increased by 0.75 percent in 2018 compared to 2017, an Energy and Natural Resources Ministry report revealed yesterday.

The country's power consumption was 292.17 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) in 2018, compared to 289.97 billion kWh in 2017. Turkey produced 293.78 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of electricity in 2018 - a production increase of 1.11 percent, up from 290.55 GWh in 2017.

Its electricity imports from neighboring countries decreased by 9.64 percent to reach 2.46 billion kWh, compared to 2.72 billion kWh in 2017.

In addition, the country's electricity exports to neighboring countries decreased by 6.96 percent to 3.07 billion kWh of electricity. Electricity exports in 2017 amounted to 3.30 billion kWh.

Turkey's total installed power capacity was 85.2 thousand megawatts (MW) by the end of 2017 and is estimated to be around 88.50 thousand MW by the end of 2018.

According to official figures, the installed capacity of the country reached 88.34 thousand MW by the end of November. However, the energy ministry has yet to release data on the installed capacity for the month of December or for 2018 in total.

In 2017, Turkey produced 37 percent of its electricity from natural gas and 33 percent from coal. However, the country aims to increase the share of renewable energy in its production mix.

In line with this goal, Energy and Natural Resources Ministry is continuing with its Renewable Energy Resource Zone Projects (YEKA).

A Siemens Gamesa-Türkerler-Kalyon consortium won the first 1,000-MW wind farm tender opened by YEKA in August 2017. The tender stipulated that the winning consortium would build a wind turbine factory in Turkey over the 21 months starting from the signing of the agreement.

The second YEKA tender for wind farms was announced in November 2018 with a deadline for applications set for March 7, 2019.

Furthermore, three solar YEKA tenders will be held with a cumulative capacity of 1,000 MW for three different locations in Turkey, namely Şanlıurfa, Hatay and Niğde provinces, with 500 MW, 200 MW and 300 MW of installed capacity, respectively.

The ceiling price per kWh of electricity has been set at $6.50 and the deadline for bid submissions is by 12 p.m. local time on Jan. 31, 2019. Turkey held a 1,000-MW solar YEKA tender in 2017 with a winning bid of $6.99 for 1 MWh and $3.48 for 1,000 MW.