Turkey should promote wind, solar investment -IEA

Turkey, dependent on Russia for 65 percent of its gas supply, should boost wind and solar energy investments as part of efforts to diversify energy resources, the International Energy Agency's (IEA) chief economist said.

Fatih Birol said the country was also dependent on Russia for power as half of Turkey's electricity was produced from natural gas. "This dependence will increase further if Russia is preferred for nuclear (energy production). A variety of fuel is needed as an alternative to natural gas," Birol told Reuters in an interview.

This month Turkey's Atomic Energy Board sanctioned the technology of a Russian-Turkish consortium that was the sole bidder in a tender to build the country's first nuclear power plant. A decision on the group's price bid will be made in January.

Birol, who is Turkish, said the country should give priority, with serious incentives, to wind and solar energy, like the European Union and the United States.

"The capacity increases in wind and solar energy in the EU and the U.S. will reduce costs... This is good news for Turkey because it will support possible investments here," he said.

Investments in renewable energy would give the country an advantage in the increasingly important area of carbon dioxide emissions, the economist said.

He said the choice of the consortium to build Turkey's first nuclear power station was very important.

"From the point of view of energy supply security, it is not good to be this dependent on one supplier," Birol said.

He said he expected liquefied natural gas (LNG) usage to pick up globally in 2011-2012, providing an opportunity for Turkey to diversify its energy suppliers.

The global financial crisis and expectations that economic growth would be around zero in Turkey next year may result in some private sector energy investments being delayed.

"This could create a very dangerous situation because this would mean that the already poor spare capacity situation could worsen further in 2010-2011," he said.

Turkey should resist the temptation to follow any moves by the European Union or the United States to shelve alternative energy projects because of the global financial crisis, he said.

While electricity demand in those regions is increasing 1 percent annually, it is expected to grow by 4-4.5 percent in Turkey in 2009, despite the economic slowdown, he said.

Reference: http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/welcome.aspx?linkid=114429