Turkey's electricity consumption decreased by 0.23% in March compared to the same month of 2019, according to data released by Turkey's Energy and Natural Resources Ministry.
The country's power consumption reached 23.74 billion kilowatt-hours last month while electricity production also decreased by 0.74% to 23.62 billion kilowatt-hours compared to March 2019.
Out of March's total production, 40.64% was generated by hydro plants while 20.48% was derived from imported coal and 10.19% from natural gas power plants.
The share of local coal plants in electricity generation was 14.25%. Wind plants generated 9.05% and the remaining 5.39% came from geothermal, fuel oil and biogas plants.
Last month, Turkey's electricity imports from neighboring countries increased by 18.58% to 307.18 million kilowatt-hours compared to 259.05 million kilowatt-hours in March 2019. Exports decreased by 27.69% to 190.92 million kilowatt-hours of electricity.
Turkey's total installed power capacity reached 91.41 gigawatts by the end of February 2020, according to official figures.
Source: Anadolu Agency
Home to Turkey’s first wind power plant, Turkey's Aegean province of Izmir is estimated to have the capacity to produce 15 billion euros' worth of wind turbines by 2023.
Izmir, with a wind turbine capacity that reached 1,549 megawatts (MW) at the end of last year, is expected to reach 2,000 MW in two years, Anadolu Agency (AA) reported Sunday, citing the Wind Energy Statistics Report 2019 prepared by the Turkish Wind Energy Association (TUREB). The Aegean province's location and functionality are ideal as it is within a couple of hours of maintenance, repair and service providers and can serve 65% of the installed wind power capacity in Turkey. The report notes that the city, which has an export volume of $10.2 billion and an import volume of $7.5 billion, holds 9.3% of the industrial production in Turkey and has a labor force of 2.5 million.
Positioned at the heart of a market of about 1.5 billion consumers, Izmir is a natural distribution center thanks to its strategic ports and its location at the intersection of Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East. Thus, companies have the opportunity to easily transmit their products to Russia, Europe, North Africa and the Middle East through the ports in the city. Izmir Development Agency (IZKA) Secretary-General Mehmet Yavuz said İzmir and the surrounding provinces, Balıkesir, Canakkale and Manisa account for 50% of Turkey's wind power capacity in the region. “Izmir and its surroundings lead our country in this sense. The contribution of these positive developments in terms of energy production in the wind energy sector to our country's economy and the environment is quite valuable,” he said.
Yavuz further pointed out that the new business opportunities created by the wind industry, the manufacturing industry and services sector are just as important. “For this reason, we consider investments in the manufacture of hundreds of hardware and parts that make up the components used in wind turbine construction as an important opportunity for our country and regional economies,” Yavuz added. According to the TUREB report, Turkey added 687 MW of installed capacity in 2019 to its wind power portfolio, generating a total of 8,056 MW from the renewable source. According to the data, wind energy provided about 8 million Turkish homes with electricity last year.
More than 75% of wind farms are located in the Aegean and Marmara regions of Turkey, the report revealed. Some 12.3% of wind farms are located in the Mediterranean region. The remaining are located in different parts of the country. Turkey currently operates a total of 198 wind energy power plants. The country has 25 wind farms under construction that will total 1,309 MW, the report read.
According to the Energy and Natural Resources Ministry, Turkey has a wind potential worth an estimated 48,000 MW. The country is gradually expanding its capacity, mainly in the Aegean and Marmara regions. The country aims to add 10,000 MW of wind power capacity in the next 10 years.
Source: Daily Sabah
As the world deals with an unprecedented global health crisis, the economic shock waves have rippled through the renewable energy sector, threatening to derail its progress.
Renewable technologies such as wind and solar PV have experienced spectacular growth over the past two decades, creating whole new global industries and helping avoid significant amounts of greenhouse gas emissions. Even faster deployment of renewables will be vital if the world is to meet its climate goals and other long-term sustainable energy objectives. But without government action, the crisis caused by the coronavirus (COVID-19) could considerably disrupt their momentum.
How the situation affects renewables will depend on two key areas: the duration of confinement and social-distancing measures in different countries, and the scope and timing of economic stimulus packages in response to the economic downturn.
Falling costs and strong policy support have made renewables increasingly attractive and competitive in many economies, but they now face three main challenges from the coronavirus crisis: supply chain disruptions that can lead to delays in completing projects; the risk of being unable to benefit from government incentives that end this year; the likely decrease in investment because of pressure on public and private budgets combined with uncertainty over future electricity demand.
More than ever, governments will be central in tackling these challenges and determining the pace of deployment of renewables in the near future. Economic stimulus packages aimed at getting the global economy back on track will be particularly important. When designing these packages, governments should bear in mind the structural benefits that renewables can bring in terms of economic development and job creation while also reducing emissions and fostering technology innovation.
In October 2019, several months before the scale of the coronavirus pandemic emerged, the IEA forecast that 2020 would be a record year for renewable electricity additions. Global installations of solar PV and wind were set to outpace 2018 levels by over 20%. Renewable policies in China, the European Union, the United States and India were expected to drive this rapid expansion.
However, in several key markets that have been considerably affected by the coronavirus crisis, major incentives to invest in renewable projects are set to expire at the end of 2020. In China and the United States, developers have to connect wind and solar PV projects by the end of December in order to qualify for expiring incentives. In the European Union, 2020 is a milestone year for member states to reach binding renewable energy targets. And in India, the financing and deployment of renewable projects need to accelerate this year to reach the country’s ambitious policy targets by the deadline of March 2022.
Factories in China manufacture about 70% of the global supply of solar panels.
Another 10% to 15% of it comes from Chinese companies operating in Southeast Asia. In February, solar PV manufacturing facilities in China paused or reduced production because of coronavirus-related lockdowns in several key provinces. At the same time, most plants in Southeast Asia, India and the United States remained open. Despite some shipment delays, the solar PV supply chain in China is now ramping up production again, with most factories slowly resuming activities by taking necessary health precautions.
The wind energy supply chain, on the other hand, is much more globally interconnected compared with solar PV. Europe is a major manufacturing hub for wind turbines, and European factories initially experienced disruptions to the supply of parts coming from China in February. Manufacturing facilities in Italy and Spain have been closed since mid-March due to strict confinement measures. In addition, the recent lockdown in India required most non-essential manufacturing facilities – including wind turbine and solar PV component manufacturers – to close until mid-April. The effects are already being felt in the United States where multiple projects have received “force majeure” notices from suppliers warning developers about possible delivery delays. Uncertainty over the timing and impact of potential lockdown measures in other countries could further delay the completion of many projects worldwide.
The impact of the pandemic is also slowing down construction activity on renewable projects. Lockdown measures in multiple European countries, India and some US states require non-essential workers to stay at home. This will further affect developers who need to complete utility-scale renewable projects by the end of 2020 to meet contractual obligations under policy programmes. In China, all wind projects need to be commissioned by the end of 2020 in order to qualify for feed-in tariff subsidies. In the United States, wind developers are in a similar situation, as they are required to ensure projects are operational by 2020 to receive production tax credits. Any delay in components or construction puts companies at risk of missing these deadlines and thus important financial incentives.
Large developers with strong cash positions may be able to handle these construction delays or additional costs they incur in the short and medium term. However, the situation remains more uncertain for small project developers with less cash at their disposal. For them, delays may require the restructuring of existing debts. Ensuring adequate access to low-cost debt and other financing mechanisms will be key to ensuring that developers can maintain operations now and in the long term.
Finally, renewable projects require multiple meetings to take place in person at both the government and community levels. Various stages of a project’s development, including securing permits and acquiring land, requires significant human interaction. With multiple government offices and energy agencies shut down around the globe, permitting processes will be delayed unless a coordinated online system that spans multiple authorities is made available.
Meanwhile, social acceptance of renewable energy projects has been a key challenge worldwide. Engaging with local communities before and during renewable energy project development has been vital to getting power plants up and running on time. Current social-distancing measures have made it harder for developers to reach these key constituents. These delays, both administrative and social, are bound to have a direct impact on projects that are due to be commissioned in 2020 or 2021. Large utilities and independent power companies are not the only entities investing in renewable energy. Last year, an estimated one-fifth of all renewable capacity deployed globally consisted of individuals and small-to-medium-sized enterprises installing solar PV panels on their roofs or business sites. Such decentralised installations – known as distributed solar PV – accounted for over 40% of global solar PV deployment last year. With costs falling, the installation of distributed solar PV provides reasonable returns in many countries, but investment in it is now at risk. Currently, the installation of distributed solar PV has stopped in many countries because of lockdown measures preventing access to the buildings. Households and small businesses facing financial shocks and economic uncertainty may postpone or abandon their plans to install solar PV on their property.
Renewables are a fundamental element of the global economy today, powering almost 30% of global electricity use. They reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and air pollution, and improve energy security. The renewable energy industry is a significant global employer, as well as a key source of new investment and innovation for clean energy transitions. In an increasing number of countries, the costs of generating electricity from hydropower, wind and solar PV are now comparable to or lower than those from newly built fossil-fuel alternatives.
Considering the unprecedented economic impact of the coronavirus crisis, the growth of renewable capacity additions this year may very well slow down for the first time in history. However, governments have the ability to change this trajectory with targeted policies that can enable renewables to grow sustainably in the coming years. Right now, policy makers are naturally focused on dealing with the huge public health challenges created by the coronavirus pandemic and taking the necessary measures to prevent a widespread financial crisis.
They are also stepping in to try to urgently address the rapid spread of economic difficulties affecting households and businesses. As governments continue to work on repairing the economic damage and spurring renewed activity in the week and months ahead, there are a number of actions that can achieve these goals while also helping the deployment of renewable energy.
First, policy makers can extend deadlines for commissioning projects beyond 2020 in order to account for delays due to supply chain disruptions or labour constraints. This will enable renewable project developers to avoid financial penalties that may weaken their financial situation in a difficult economic context while allowing them to keeping previous incentives for which they had qualified. Second, governments can include specific financing measures and incentives for renewable projects in upcoming stimulus packages.
These should focus on reducing the risks for capital-intensive utility-scale solar PV and wind projects under dire macroeconomic conditions, especially for small developers. This will require the continuation and extension of existing policy measures that have shown they can accelerate cost-effective deployment. Additional economic incentives such as tax credits, investment grants and specific loan schemes would be necessary to maintain demand for the highly vulnerable distributed solar PV sector. These incentives can be combined with energy efficiency policies. Third, short-term policy actions on renewables should align with a new medium- and long-term visions that aim to achieve a rapid peak in greenhouse gas emissions this decade and a steep decline thereafter. Renewables and energy efficiency will play the leading roles in advancing clean energy transitions, but they need a continued and coherent long-term policy vision. In that sense, stimulus packages should also channel funds to new renewable energy technologies that are not fully commercialised but have significant cost reduction potential, such as floating offshore wind farms, marine technologies and low-carbon hydrogen production.
Stimulus packages also give countries a unique opportunity to prepare the world’s electricity infrastructure for a future that will require strong grids and greater sources of flexibility to accommodate increasing shares of variable renewables such as wind and solar PV. The coronavirus pandemic poses a significant threat to the timely deployment of renewables and their vital contribution to clean energy transitions. But governments can enable these technologies to emerge from the crisis with renewed momentum and play an important role in the global economic recovery.
Source: IEA
Around half of the world’s population is now affected by measures to contain the coronavirus pandemic. At the same time, demand for electricity is falling and the risk of a global recession is increasing, Wood Mackenzie says in a newly released market report. This situation will have a range of different impacts on the future deployment of renewable energy.
WoodMac analysts expect to see a disproportionate impact on demand for solar PV projects and storage systems, as well as electric vehicles. As a result, the research firm has lowered its full-year forecast for new PV capacity additions by 18% from 129.5 GW to 106.4 GW in 2020. And the consequences of the coronavirus crisis will be felt throughout the coming year and beyond, which is why the company has also cut its 2021 outlook for solar demand by 3% compared to previous forecasts.
Containment measures for the coronavirus pandemic are having different impacts on different segments. These issues will primarily show up in delays in installations of utility-scale solar plants, as well as declining demand for residential and commercial PV systems, as customers are now under considerable economic pressure as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
WoodMac also expects to see falling module prices in Europe and the United States. Over the past few weeks, a number of PV manufacturers in China have been able to start resuming production, and some of them have already returned to full production capacity. The research firm said that this has contributed to price declines in Europe and the United States since the beginning of this month.
The forecast for the global storage market is similarly bleak. For example, WoodMac reduced its base scenario for 2020 by 20%, mainly due to delays in project implementation. However, the growth of storage throughout the world will still exceed the levels seen in 2019. Just like with the PV market, the research firm assumes that demand for residential solar+storage will be more affected by pandemic containment measures than demand for utility-scale projects.
As things currently stand, the decline in demand for electric vehicles could be even more drastic. WoodMac expects the market to shrink by roughly 43% from 2019. This is mainly due to measures in the United States, while a recovery is expected in China and Europe by the end of this year, with a return to the levels seen in 2019, at least.
WoodMac claims that the main risks for regional energy markets will be tied to the duration and scope of the ongoing economic standstill and the subsequent decline in demand due to the global recession. In Europe, there is still a shift in fossil-fuel power plants from coal to gas on the electricity markets. Falling demand for electricity and favorable weather conditions for wind power and solar PV have recently contributed to low electricity prices. In some countries – including Germany, France, and the United Kingdom – this has also led to negative electricity prices. This is complicating the economics of gas-powered plants in Europe at the moment, the analysts said.
Similar trends can already be seen in the United States and Latin America. For Latin America, it is expected that financing for new renewable-energy plants and gas-fired power plants could become difficult due to inflation. Falling oil prices could also accelerate the planned shift from oil to coal to be delayed in many countries.
Source: pv magazine
As businesses shut down and many work from home around the world, electricity demand has reduced in COVID-19 hotspots. This could have a knock-on effect for the renewable sector.
China, where the outbreak first took hold, is the world’s biggest electricity consumer. Output from factories has been substantially diminished with many unable to return to their jobs in manufacturing. Due to the curtailing of industrial electricity use, cuts in energy consumption for 2020 could be equivalent to the power used by the whole of Chile, according to IHS Markit.
In Europe, peak power consumption has also gone down. Italy, Spainand the UK have all seen an average 10 per cent drop in energy usage with bars, restaurants, offices and factories, which remain closed as social distancing measures continue.
In particular, fossil fuel based sources of electricity have been impacted by reduced requirements. Coal, usually one of the cheapest options, has now become the most expensive fuel in the world in the face of cheap green alternatives and natural gas, according to Bloomberg Green.
Renewable energy sources seem to have been given an unexpected boost. Around 40 per cent of the electricity generated in the UK on Sunday 5th March came from wind farms, with nearly a fifth being provided by solar energy. This was due to the unusually sunny day, says the National Grid ESO carbon intensity tracker.
These conditions have meant that renewable sources generated more than enough energy to cover the country’s reduced needs. Green supplier, Octopus Energy even paid some customers to use energy during the day, using a scheme that has previously only been available during the night when demand is very low.
“In most economies that have taken strong confinement measures in response to the coronavirus – and for which we have available data – electricity demand has declined by around 15%, largely as a result of factories and businesses halting operations,” Dr Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency wrote in a blog post.
“In this way, the recent drop in electricity demand fast-forwarded some power systems 10 years into the future, suddenly giving them levels of wind and solar power they wouldn’t have had otherwise without another decade of investment in renewables.”
He went on to explain that this increase in renewable energy usage could even help some countries figure out how to deal with the drop in power that comes from the sun setting or a strong wind dying down. Previously, these kinds of fluctuating energy sources have proved challenging for those who work to keep our lights on. Managing them more intelligently by shutting off solar panels at midday when there is more electricity than usual and slowing down wind power as demand decreases at night are just some options Dr Birol suggests.
These new findings have also put the spotlight on more reliable and often neglected sources of green energy, like hydropower, which are essential to making sure we have a consistent supply of energy. In exceptional situations like the current pandemic, where a fluctuation in energy supply could put lives and employment at even greater risk, this is particularly important.
Source: Euronews
Electricity consumption has levelled out in Germany, France and Italy, after falling for several weeks due to restrictions aimed at stemming the spread of the coronavirus.
But in Great Britain and Spain, demand has continued to drop week on week in recent days, according to an ICIS model that controls for the impact of temperature across Europe’s five largest consumers of electricity.
In order to establish by how much power consumption has fallen as a result of the coronavirus, ICIS used multiple regressions to find the closest statistical fit between daily averages for demand and the temperature and day of the week in each country in March between 2015-2019.
Likely due to some combination of energy efficiency measures and the economic impact of the UK’s exit from the European Union, British power demand fell in all-but-one year across the sample period, and this has continued in 2020. ICIS also included an annual measure in the GB model in order to control for this.
The models were highly statistically significant, explaining 80-91% of the variation in power demand across the five countries.
- A 1°C drop in temperature effected anywhere between a 300MW rise in demand (in Spain and Italy) and 1.9GW (in France) over the sample period, according to the model
- Demand dropped roughly 4GW on weekends or public holidays in Spain and the UK, but 6.5GW in France, 8.7GW in Italy and 11.1GW in Germany
- British demand fell by an average of around 450MW each year
The power market most affected by its national lockdown has unsurprisingly been Italy, as the epicentre of the outbreak in Europe and the country with the most stringent restrictions in place. Demand in Italy has dropped by one quarter or 9GW since the outbreak, according to the model.
Europe’s largest electricity consumer Germany has been the least impacted of the five countries, with demand steady at around 8% or 5GW below expectations for almost a week. The results suggest that much of Germany’s industry is still operating at close to normal, with the government aiming to follow the South Korean model of widespread testing and quarantining in order to avoid a strict national lockdown.
French power demand has at times fallen even more steeply than Italy, but levelled out sooner in percentage if not outright terms, due to a larger power sector overall. Since dropping over 20% or 13.5GW below expectations across week 13, demand has risen slightly week on week with each subsequent day, according to the model.
Demand has yet to level out in Britain or Spain. Over the past seven days, this has fallen close to 15% or 5GW below expectations in both countries according their models. The UK imposed its lockdown later than the other countries, so unless restrictions are tightened, could be expected to level out similarly in coming days. Spain tightened its lockdown restrictions from 30 March, shutting all non-essential businesses and industries.
Overall, the models provide key early baselines for demand drops across European power markets.
For instance, the close-to-maximum lockdown in place in Italy could reveal the most that demand could possibly drop in any semi-functioning European power market.
It is important to note that the relationship between power demand and price is not 1:1, instead depending on the marginal cost breakdown of each country’s fleet of power plants. But if traders had expected continuing steady demand falls in any power market they likely need to revise those expectations quickly.
That said, European energy markets are clearly highly exposed to any further tightening or closures in Europe’s industrial hub Germany.
Finally, these findings refer specifically to March in each of these countries. It is possible that the results will not project forward into the summer as cooling overtakes heating as the bigger component of electricity demand.
Source: ICIS
European Power Sector in 2019
Coal generation collapsed by 24% in the EU in 2019. Hard coal generation dropped by 32%, while lignite decreased by 16%. This development is driven by CO₂ price increases and deployment of renewables. Gas replaced around half of the coal, solar and wind the other half. The decline of coal will continue: Greece and Hungary both made commitments in 2019 to phase out coal, bringing the total of member states phasing out coal to 15. Only Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and Slovenia are yet to start.
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