ENERGY NEWS - TURKEY
Turkey: Early Adopter of Renewables in MENAT

Turkey along with Morocco have become early adopters of renewable energy in the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey (MENAT) region by implementing suitable policies and offering appropriate incentives, President and CEO for GE Renewable Energy in the MENAT region, Manar al-Moneef, told Anadolu Agency (AA) on Monday.

Al-Moneef, speaking exclusively on the sidelines of the Renewable Energy Outlook Conference: Financing, Investment, Regulation, and New Technologies in Turkey, Central Asia, Caucasus and the Western Balkans, gave examples of Turkey and Morocco, both of which were heavily dependent on fossil fuels for electricity, as a success story in transitioning to renewables.

"97% of Morocco's imports were only fossil fuels to produce electricity. Turkey had a huge amount as well. These are the early movers," she said.

Energy importer countries in the MENAT region began to deploy renewables as the technology developed in the last few years. She explained that 10 years ago, governments heavily subsidized the cost of fossil fuel energy when the costs were significantly lower than renewables.

Both countries prepared to expand their renewable energy portfolio by developing strong regulatory systems to attract investors and developers to the market, she said.

"Today if you look at Morocco, they achieved their 2020 target of 2 gigawatts (GW). Turkey has over 7 GW on the grid which is exactly the target they had and they are developing more," she said.

However, she maintained that with the oil price fluctuation in the last few years from $140 per barrel at its peak to lows of $20 per barrel, now oil exporters are starting to consider renewable energy for electricity production.

"Countries, like Saudi Arabia, have actually invested in solar and wind and they now have one of the cheapest energy costs globally. Now it is not only oil importers but also oil exporters who are saying it makes economic sense. The question is not whether people are going to use renewables, the question is how fast can they do so and deploy it," she asserted.

Early movers to renewables are at an advantage, one of which she said was Turkey by developing a very strong regime and regulatory system in terms of feed-in-tariffs.

Subsequently, Turkey continued to further encourage renewables through the introduction of the renewable energy resources zone or YEKA scheme in 2017, and by attracting investor interest through new auction models, all of which ensured that costs were driven down and that renewables deployment moved at a very fast pace, al-Moneef said.

The first 1,000 MW YEKA wind tender concluded with a winning bid price of $3.48 per megawatt-hour and 1,000 MW YEKA solar tender with a winning bid price of $6.99 per megawatt-hour.

Beforehand in 2011, Turkey launched a Turkish Renewable Energy Resources Support Mechanism (YEKDEM to use the country's vast clean sources efficiently and support its development).

YEKDEM offers a feed-in tariff of $0.073 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for wind and hydropower projects, $0.105 for geothermal facilities and $0.133 for solar energy and biomass geothermal plants. However, the scheme will end in 2020 and work is ongoing to introduce a more updated and efficient replacement.

On Oct. 7, 2019, Energy Minister Fatih Donmez announced plans to hold YEKA tenders for solar energy in a new form, known as "mini YEKA" which are due to be held in the first half of 2020.

She said she is very impressed with the fact that Turkey has become one of the largest markets within the region by using multiple platforms to introduce renewables.

“You have the feed-in-tariff, allowed people to understand the industry, developed the capabilities and the entire necessary infrastructure," she said.

Al-Moneef, referring to the conference speech of Alparslan Bayraktar's, Turkey’s deputy energy and natural resources minister, who explained Turkey's roadmap for the post-feed-in tariff period and the new system to support renewables, concluded that there would be a faster ramp-up rather than a slow down in renewables in Turkey.

- "Local manufacture in Turkey is right decision"

Al-Moneef also hailed the activities and operations of GE in Turkey. "Turkey is like a partner for us in GE. We are very proud of what we have done. Today GE is very proud to have 560 employees in the LM Wind Power facility in Izmir with over 24% of them being female."

She stressed the blades produced in GE's LM Wind Power facility are exported to Australia, Europe and the rest of the world, a trend she described as a “huge landmark."

GE, a company that is significantly investing in offshore and which has the largest offshore turbines globally, is currently expanding their LM Wind Power factory and is introducing the Cypress, the largest onshore wind turbine at 5.3-megawatts, she said.

“This is going to be the largest facility for us and is a clear indication for GE that manufacturing in Turkey is the right decision. It is cost-competitive as we have the right labor and human capital to produce good quality products. We have the right suppliers and we have the right market," she said.

As a market leader in offshore technology, she said that GE would be interested in all new opportunities in offshore projects including Turkey's first planned offshore wind farm. Turkey wants to add offshore wind to its energy mix in the coming years, and based on this aim, the country plans to offer, for the first time, a total of 1.2 GW of capacity with a total investment volume forecast to exceed $3 billion.

Source: AA

Solar is Key in Cutting Turkish Gas Imports: GENSED Head

Solar energy is a key energy source to mitigate the high costs of Turkey’s imported gas, according to the head of the Turkish Solar Energy Industry Association, GENSED, Halil Demirdag, on Wednesday.

One thousand megawatts (MW) of installed capacity in solar energy will prevent $110 million worth of imported natural gas, Demirdag told Anadolu Agency's energy desk in an exclusive interview.

Turkey is a major solar energy player due to the country’s abundance of solar energy.

"In solar energy installed capacity, Turkey's share in the world has reached 1%. Turkey is very lucky in terms of geography when it comes to solar energy," he said.

Turkey, which is highly dependent on natural gas for its domestic energy consumption, imported a total 50.36 billion cubic meters of gas in 2018. These import costs are seen as substantial on the country’s energy budget, and therefore, the country is focusing heavily on renewable energy investments, he said.

He explained that investments in renewables and solar in particular have lower financial costs, the results of which will see greater installed capacity in Turkey.

Turkey's current installed solar capacity is around 6,000 MW, but Demirdag believes this will surpass 10,000 MW this year.

Global installed capacity in solar energy has recently surpassed 500,000 MW, more than 80% of which came in the last five years, Demirdag noted.

In China, considered the world’s biggest solar panel manufacturers with a 90% share, the coronavirus outbreak has had an impact on solar production and its supply chain.

However, Demirdag expressed hope and said that these concerns are already being quelled by Europe’s decision to have at least a capacity of 10,000 MW in solar panel production.

He also referred to requests from European buyers in the past 15-20 days who are interested in purchasing textiles, automatives and spare parts from Turkey to shore up the shortfall in trade from China.

Source: AA

ENERGY NEWS - WORLD
Annual Off-Grid Solar Market Hits $1.75bn, Lights 420 Million Users

The World Bank and the Global Off-Grid Lighting Association (GOGLA) have released a new report analysing trends within the off-grid solar energy market.

The off-grid solar sector has grown by 30% each year since 2017. Annual market revenue has increased from $1.5 billion in 2012 to $1.75 billion in 2017, according to the 2020 Off-Grid Solar Market Trends report.

In addition, the market is now able to provide lighting and other energy services to 420 million users.

To date, more than 180 million off-grid solar units have been sold worldwide.

The off-grid solar industry has made tremendous strides in the past decade and is set to record a solid growth curve.

With 840 million people still lacking access to electricity, the growth of the off-grid solar industry is critical to meeting the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG7) for universal access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy by 2030.

An additional $11 billion in financing is needed to expand the market by 13% to achieve SDG7 goals.

Up to $7.7 billion in external investment to companies and up to $3.4 billion of public funding is also required to bridge the affordability gap.

Off-grid solar companies are moving into new geographies and underserved markets as established markets become more saturated.

Source: Smart Energy International

Jeff Bezos Commits $10 Billion to Fight Climate Change

Jeff Bezos is throwing his weight and wealth  behind the fight against climate change months after Amazon employees publicly pressured him and the company to do more to address the issue.

The Amazon (AMZN) CEO on Monday announced a new fund to back scientists, activists and organizations working to mitigate the impact of climate change. Bezos will commit $10 billion "to start," he said in an Instagram post.

The initiative, called the Bezos Earth Fund, will begin giving out grants this summer.

The $10 billion commitment constitutes less than 8% of the world's richest man's estimated $130 billion net worth.

Even so, it is one of the biggest charitable pledges ever, according to a ranking by the Chronicle of Philanthropy, behind a $36 billion commitment by billionaire Warren Buffett in 2006 and an estimated $16.4 billion pledge by Helen Walton, the late wife of Walmart (WMT) founder Sam Walton, in 2007.

"Climate change is the biggest threat to our planet," Bezos said in the post.

"I want to work alongside others both to amplify known ways and to explore new ways of fighting the devastating impact of climate change."

Source: CNN

Scottish Power Launches 100% Green Energy Tariff

Scottish Power is launching a new tariff in which it guarantees that 100% of the electricity will come from its own renewable energy projects, to mark it out from so-called “greenwashing” energy deals that are not as clean as they seem.

The consumer group Which? found that many suppliers are misleading eco-conscious customers by claiming to offer renewable energy tariffs without ever investing in renewable energy projects.

Which? said that “pale green” suppliers are boasting green credentials by exploiting an industry loophole enabling them to buy cheap renewable energy certificates to match the electricity they supply to customers, while buying the power from another source.

Ofgem, the energy regulator, said earlier this month that it was aware of growing concerns about greenwashing in the energy market and would take action to ensure consumers were not misled.

Keith Anderson, the chief executive of Scottish Power, said: “With an increasing number of green tariffs in the market, it’s important that consumers understand how ‘green’ their tariff is in terms of supporting the UK renewables industry.”

Green energy developers typically sell renewable certificates alongside their electricity supply deals so that buyers can prove the origins of their energy. But industry rules mean the initial buyer is free to sell the certificates, without selling the green energy, to a second buyer.

“There are lots of suppliers running around, slapping a bit of green paint on their logo and trading bits of paper to claim they’re green. But buying and selling certificates doesn’t help tackle climate change – building wind farms and solar projects is what we need to do,” Anderson added.

Scottish Power sold off all its fossil fuel projects in 2018 to focus on growing its stable of onshore and offshore wind farms, and developing a portfolio of solar power projects.

Anderson said the company would reinvest money made from the green tariffs in a new renewable generation, “meaning the more people who take up the tariff, the more investment in green energy there will be”.

To date, only community energy projects and small green energy companies such as Good Energy and Ecotricity generate enough of their own renewable energy to supply customers with clean electricity sourced exclusively from their own wind and solar farms.

Anderson added: “As the UK’s only end-to-end energy provider, we’re unique in being able to make this commitment. From today, anyone who signs up for our electricity on a fixed-price tariff can be confident that they are buying electricity from truly green sources.”

Source: Guardian

As Electric Car Sales Soar, Industry Faces a Cobalt Crisis

Electric vehicle sales are soaring, with factories working full-pelt to churn out as many batteries as possible. And that’s creating some bottlenecks.

Global production of electric vehicles is predicted to top four million cars globally this year, rising to 12 million in 2025. In Europe alone, 540,000 electric cars will be sold this year, an increase from 319,000 last year. For that to happen, we don’t just need gigafactories to build the batteries but also need to get hold of the key materials, notably lithium and cobalt — and the gold rush on both has already begun.

Last week, The Times reported that Jaguar Land Rover would pause production on the I-Pace, pinning the blame on shortages at battery maker LG Chem.

Mercedes halved its 2020 production goals after shortages with same supplier. "Currently EV uptake is arguably being constrained more by lack of manufacturing capacity than anything else," says Paul Anderson, co-director of the Birmingham Centre for Strategic Elements and Critical Materials. "Lack of battery manufacturing capacity is a key part of this, which is why there is the rush to build gigafactories."

A lack of gigantic factories is a problem that can be relatively easily solved. "In June 2019, there were 91 factories in the pipeline for producing lithium ion cells around the world, of which around half were already in production the previous year," says Gavin Harper, research fellow at the Faraday Institution, a battery research group.

What isn’t so easily solved is the issue of getting enough raw materials out of the ground. "It’s been predicted that as demand for electric vehicles surges, there could be constraints around the key strategic elements and critical materials needed for EV battery manufacture in the future," says Harper.

Aside from the usual hurdles of sourcing and extracting deposits and processing material for use, the key ingredients for EV batteries face geopolitical upheaval including trade wars, local protests, and raise human rights and environmental concerns. That will cause "structural undersupply," says Andrew Leyland, head of strategic advisory at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, and could wreak havoc on EV supply chains just as the industry is hoping to go mainstream.

Look at lithium. At the moment, we have enough – too much, in fact. While soaring prices of the core material in lithium-ion batteries sparked a mining rush in Australia, Argentina and Chile and – which between them provided 91 per cent of supply in 2017, says Harper – a slump in demand caused by a weak automotive market and a reduction in grants for buying such cars in China has slowed the pace of mining and processing plant construction.

Leyland says back in 2015, there were maybe 15 such lithium mines. "Now you're closer to 30, 35," he says. Most of those are in Australia, which is now the world’s biggest producer of lithium with China its biggest customer; back in the 1990s, the US was the main lithium supplier to the world, but now it has just one major producer. But just because the lithium isn’t on your land doesn’t mean you can’t get at it. The US does still have small lithium deposits – in particular, around the Salton Sea in California – but deposits in Australia and South America are vast by comparison. But America, Leyland points out, owns two of the largest chemical companies.

China is globally the biggest player in lithium, no surprise as it's also making and buying the most EVs. "This is starting to worry a lot of OEMs," says Leyland, pointing to the trade war spurred on by a tweet from US President Donald Trump. "People don't want a single point of failure in their supply chain – you can't really invest billions of dollars and then overnight, one tweet means an export tariff makes your business unsustainable."

Lithium mines also face protests from farmers in Portugal and indigenous communities in Chile, ocking mining efforts in the country, raising questions not only of supply but ethics – with both challenges faced by cobalt.

Unlike lithium, much of cobalt is found in one place, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or DRC – 59 per cent of the world's supply is sourced from that country. Among many concerns, there's evidence of widespread use of child labour, and last year tech companies were sued for their alleged role in the death and injury of children. Then there’s the harsh economics: cobalt is also one of the most expensive metals in EV batteries, costing between $33,000 and $35,000 per tonne. And we simply may not have enough supply. Research from MIT suggests there's not enough ability to mine and process the material to meet demand. The research suggests that demand could reach 430,000 tonnes in the next decade, which is 1.6 times today's capacity.

One solution could be finding an alternative to cobalt in EV batteries. One major Chinese manufacturer, Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL), already produces batteries that use phosphate instead of nickel-cobalt-aluminum or nickel-manganese-cobalt combinations. That's attracted the attention of Tesla, with reports suggesting the company is seeking to add lithium iron phosphate batteries to its options.

Back in 2018, Tesla CEO Elon Musk pledged that his company would stop using cobalt in the next generation of batteries, but the deal in China is likely for shorter-range cars, as phosphate batteries don't have the same capacity as cobalt ones. We're going to need better batteries, or fix cobalt, if EV sales are going to continue to soar.

Source: Wired

REPORT OF THE WEEK

Renewable Energy Finance: Green Bonds

Countries seeking to scale up renewables can draw on the bond market, including the growing range of securities dedicated to sustainable, environmentally beneficial, climate-safe project finance. Renewable energy has emerged as a major recipient of such green bond proceeds.

This brief from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) highlights enormous growth potential for sustainable energy offerings through the green bond market. As the world focuses on decarbonising energy use, green bonds form a key link between capital providers and renewable energy projects.

Please click here to read the full report.

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