Turkey to roll out incentives for power plants using locally produced coal, minister says

Turkey is set to launch an incentive program on electricity purchase guarantees for power plants using locally produced coal, Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar said on Friday, adding that coal plants remained vital for supply security.

Speaking at a mine in western Turkey, Bayraktar said the program would begin this month and that the incentives would apply to existing local coal plants until 2030. Some 60 percent of the electricity produced there will be bought by the state at a stable hard currency rate, he added.

Turkey’s installed capacity for electricity generation from domestically produced coal is approximately 7,500 MW out of 120,000 total installed capacity, Bayraktar said.

These power plants comprised 12 percent of the total electricity generated as of end-June, and the government considers coal power plants to be critical for the employment they provide to the mining sector and for energy supply security.

“We are also incentivizing coal plants that will be newly established as part of this program. We are working on a purchase guarantee scheme running until 2045,” Bayraktar said.

“Therefore we will increase our energy production from domestic coal (and) coal production by adding to our existing installed capacity and replacing old power plants that will be decommissioned with new ones, and we will reduce our dependence on foreign sources.”

Turkey, Europe’s top polluter from coal-fired power production, has pledged to gradually reduce its carbon emissions to zero by 2053.

However, around 35 percent of Turkey’s electricity was generated from coal last year, making it the country’s largest single power fuel source. This is unlikely to change significantly any time soon, analysts say, given strong demand for energy.