Share of renewable energy continues to grow in Turkey: President

By Enes Kaplan, Mehmet Tosun and Ali Kemal Akan

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey continues to expand the share of renewable energy resources in its energy basket, the country's president said on Tuesday.

"The aim of our works, which we carry out with the principle of more domestic, more renewable, is to meet our energy needs through domestic and national means with reasonable prices in a continuous and qualified manner," Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, speaking in the capital Ankara at the opening ceremony of multiple power plants.

"Thus, we constantly increase the share of the renewable energy resources in our energy basket," he added.

Underlining that the country's economy had continuously enjoyed high growth rates over the past 19 years, save for a few extraordinary periods, Erdogan said Turkey's energy demand increased in parallel with the size of its economy and population.

"Our electricity consumption has increased by some 8% this year alone. The works carried out by our relevant institutions have shown that our electrical energy demand will increase by 3.5% annually on average. If our economy maintains the momentum it has gained despite the pandemic conditions, these figures will further increase."

Erdogan said the government took into consideration both Turkey's increasing energy needs and the global economic outlook while pursuing its energy policy.

Pointing out that Turkey ranks 12th in the world and fifth in Europe in total installed renewable power in 2020, the president said that 57.4% of the electricity produced last year was obtained from domestic sources, while 42.5% was from renewable sources.

*Writing by Seda Sevencan