Turkey in August will open its very first indigenous integrated solar panel factory as part of its efforts to strengthen the nation’s power grid, the country's president said on Sunday.
"We ensured over $100 billion has been invested in energy by the public and private sectors over the past 18 years," since the ruling party came to power, Recep Tayyip Erdogan told a mass launching ceremony of hydroelectric power plants in the northern province of Tokat, speaking via video link from Istanbul.
In the first five months of 2020, he stressed, Turkey boosted its electricity production from domestic and renewable sources to 66%, adding that last year Turkey was second place in Europe in the production of electrical energy based on renewable resources.
"It is not possible for a country without energy to talk about being civilized," he said.
At a time when the world closed into itself, Turkey has shown that it is not surrendering to the pandemic but is instead supporting investment, production, and employment, he said.
Erdogan said he believes power plants make Turkey stronger, as they are symbols of development, advancement, and growth.
"Continuing investing in all areas alongside healthcare services during the outbreak showed Turkey's determination to achieve its goals for the year 2023," the nation’s centennial, he said.
He underlined that in 2002, Turkey had 31,000 megawatts of installed power capacity, while in 2020 it boasted nearly three times that number, 91,000 megawatts.
Erdogan reiterated that Akkuyu, Turkey's first nuclear power plant, will start operating in 2023.
"With this project, we will both diversify our electricity production and ensure that our energy portfolio has a more balanced structure."
Fifty-two hydroelectricity power plants in 26 Turkish cities with 1,439 megawatts total installed capacity began operating in the last two years, Energy and Natural Resources Minister Fatih Donmez told the ceremony.
Nearly 11.3 billion Turkish liras ($1.65 billion) was invested in these plants, he added.
Source: Anadolu Agency
Biomass energy theoretically has the potential to meet almost one-third of Turkey's yearly electricity consumption, according to Professor Gunnur Kocar, the manager of Ege University Biomass Energy Systems and Technologies Application and Research Center (BESTMER), told Anadolu Agency (AA) Thursday.
The Izmir-based energy company will help utilize this potential, she said.
Speaking exclusively to AA, Kocar said biomass has a lot to offer Turkey as it can produce biogas, which can be used in the energy sector specifically to produce electricity. Biogas is a type of biofuel that is naturally produced from the decomposition of organic waste which includes animal waste, more specifically cattle and poultry waste.
A Biomass Energy Potential Assessment (BEPA) 2020 study showed that since Turkey has approximately 17 million cattle, it could procure almost 120 million tons of waste per annum, Kocar said.
She added that when this waste potential is fully utilized – although this is currently not practically possible – biogas production, equivalent to nearly 4% of Turkey's annual natural gas production, is achievable in theory.
"When a variety of biomass sources are taken into accounts, such as agricultural and municipal waste along with cattle and poultry waste, biomass offers very high potential to meet one-third of Turkey's annual electricity consumption," she said.
Kocar added that modern and technologically mature systems are not as widespread in biomass energy as in solar and wind energy. She explained that biomass energy systems, which have proved technically and economically sufficient worldwide, have not been fully put into use in Turkey, except for a few biomass plants, despite the country's rich biomass potential and technological infrastructure. To utilize this potential, she stressed the importance of government incentives and measures, as well as the need to obtain social acceptance of new technologies through education and promotional activity.
"It is very important that the installations, supply of system materials, maintenance and repair activities are being conducted by local institutions to provide continuity (in the biomass systems applications)," she added.
She acknowledged the possibility of producing high added-value energy from only one source of waste but said that modern technologies in the last century have allowed this possibility to be extended to a variety of fuels from biomass sources. She cited solid biofuels as one of the first examples of this.
"Biofuels that are compressed and shaped into certain forms, like pellets and briquettes, can be used to produce thermal energy instead of wood. In terms of liquid fuels, now biodiesel and bioethanol can be used as an alternative for vehicles using diesel and gasoline," she explained.
Source: Daily Sabah
Countries and regions that successfully and repeatedly produce new energy technologies have adopted different approaches to innovation, but they all have at least one thing in common: governments fulfill vital roles in spurring and nurturing inventions and incentivising their progress.
Among the most important of these roles is funding basic research and major applied research and development (R&D) projects. However, the latest data on the scale and focus of public budgets for energy R&D around the world indicate that they are not in line with ambitious international climate and sustainable energy goals – even though innovation is essential for meeting those targets.
The world has seen a proliferating number of pledges by numerous governments and companies to reach net-zero carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the coming decades as part of global efforts to meet long-term sustainability goals, such as the Paris Agreement on climate change. But there is a stark disconnect between these high-profile pledges and the current state of clean energy technology development and diffusion. While the technologies in use today can deliver a large amount of the emissions reductions called for by these goals, they are insufficient on their own to bring the world to net zero while ensuring that energy systems remain resilient – even with much stronger policies supporting them.
Innovation involves a wide range of participants, but governments have a pivotal role, especially in the wake of the challenges created by the Covid-19 crisis. Through measures such as countercyclical spending on energy R&D and technology demonstration, governments can accelerate clean energy innovation and ensure that the human capital embodied in the approximately 750.000 jobs in energy research and development is preserved and further nurtured. Governments’ economic recovery plans provide a strategic opportunity to ensure that key industries come out of the Covid-19 crisis stronger and ready to supply future domestic and international growth markets.
Source: International Energy Agency
Data made public today on the Energy Policy Tracker, a new website tracking climate- and energy-related recovery policies, shows a total commitment of at least USD 151 billion from G20 governments in support of fossil fuels. Of them, only 20% make financial support conditional on green requirements, such as setting climate targets or implementing pollution reduction plans. At the same time, USD 89 billion has been committed to clean energy but 81% of this support is unspecific about the appropriate environmental safeguards.
The Energy Policy Tracker provides information about public funding commitments and other government policies related to the production and consumption of energy in the G20 countries since the beginning of the pandemic—with weekly updates. While rhetoric about the need for a green recovery has grown louder in the policy space, this data shows that, in reality, fossil fuel producers and high-carbon sectors, such as airlines, are currently receiving 70% more recovery aid than the clean energy.
” The COVID-19 crisis and governments’ responses to it are intensifying the trends that existed before the pandemic struck,” says Dr. Ivetta Gerasimchuk, IISD expert and the Energy Policy Tracker project lead. “National and subnational jurisdictions that heavily subsidized the production and consumption of fossil fuels in previous years have once again thrown lifelines to oil, gas, coal, and fossil fuel-powered electricity. Meanwhile, economies that had already begun a transition to clean energy are now using stimulus and recovery packages to make this happen even faster.”
The Energy Policy Tracker registered over 200 individual policies from G20 countries, combining the amounts committed through each policy to generate total aggregate figures. To provide a detailed, real-world picture of the current state of support for different energy types, the data for both fossil fuels and clean energy is split into sub-categories—unconditional and conditional. These categories provided a more nuanced picture on the different levels of government support for a green recovery from the pandemic.
Angela Picciariello, Senior Research Officer at ODI, says: “In spite of the great number of clean policies being approved by governments in recent months, the tracking system shows how the fossil fuel industry has continued to aggressively lobby policy-makers. This has resulted in some so-called conditional fossil fuel policies that nevertheless lock in dangerous emissions for decades to come. Nor is it always easy to distinguish clean from fossil fuel policies—the tracking system is important to identify the policies causing the greatest, and often hidden, environmental damage.”
G20 countries are responsible for around 80% of global greenhouse gas emissions and account for 85% of global GDP. With G20 governments committed to injecting over USD 8 trillion into the global economy, decisions made today about how these funds will be distributed will lock in the world’s environmental footprint for decades to come.
“Under the guise of COVID-19 recovery spending, governments are pouring huge volumes of public money into the struggling fossil fuel industry, wasting an opportunity to fight the climate crisis while enriching big polluters,” says Alex Doukas, a Program Director at OCI. “Recovery spending must dramatically change course to support clean energy as an investment in the future, instead of subsidizing the polluters of the past. Fossil fuels were a bad investment even before the pandemic began.”
“The recovery from the coronavirus crisis needs to result in an acceleration of the energy transition,” says Dr. Tom Moerenhout, Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University.
“If we miss that opportunity and embark on another fossil fuel-powered economic recovery—as was the case in 2008—then it is not likely but certain that our planet’s already high fever will turn into heatstroke.”
According to the data released today, committed support for clean energy amounted so far to USD 89 billion, but only USD 16 billion has been committed to support unconditionally clean energy such as solar or wind.
Source: Stockholm Environment Institute
A new study released by Deloitte highlights the key trends, challenges, and opportunities that may affect the US renewable energy industry in the second half of 2020.
Despite the challenges presented by COVID-19, the US renewable energy industry’s long-term growth trajectory appears intact.
The report presents the three key trends that are likely to disrupt the sector and they include. Renewables’ low costs will likely continue to usher in a new era of competition, intensified by COVID-19 impacts. As shutdowns continue in the US, Deloitte predicts that there is going to be a decline in electricity consumption and changes in demand patterns.
The Energy Information Agency predicts a 5.7% decline in electricity consumption this year. Renewable energy sources have consistently accounted for a higher share of power generation due to their near-zero marginal costs.
Whilst energy demand decreases, renewable energy generation is expected to rise. As the pandemic continues to unfold in the second half of 2020 and utilities face revenue challenges, solar and wind plants will likely continue to be operated more than costlier fossil-fuel plants.
Focus on grid resilience is expected to continue to drive renewables and storage adoption. Utilities and their customers are expected to continue deploying microgrids, often including solar and storage, to help ensure power continuity as they consider workforce logistics, employee health and safety, operations, and supply chains. While COVID-19 will likely have a short-term impact on the financing and construction of battery storage projects, longterm demand will likely continue to be strong. With rising renewable production, matching the supply of abundant renewable generation with energy demand would require long-duration bulk storage to maintain reliable grid service.
About 46% of the storage projects slated to come online in 2020 are solar-plus-storage, and the pandemic has not stopped new projects from being added. New types of collaborations are likely while many stakeholders adopt a wait-and-see approach. Corporations have contributed significantly toward driving renewable energy demand, and many have made voluntary commitments to transition to 100 percent clean energy. This has led to interesting collaborations in the sector, with an expanding pool of companies spearheading renewable procurement deals in recent years. This continued in the first quarter of 2020, and as of late April, companies announced deals for at least 1.76 GW of renewable capacity.
However, the current pandemic has slowed this activity, and renewable procurement deal activity is also subdued. Future activity will depend on how corporations perform in their core businesses.
Faced with supply chain bottlenecks and multiple projects receiving force majeure notices from suppliers, renewable developers are likely to seek new collaborations to diversify their supplier base and add flexibility.
Further, smaller, less capitalised developers are likely to restructure projects to better handle delays and additional costs or look for opportunities for consolidation or outside investors.
Source: Smart Energy International
The world could have 70 GW of installed floating wind capacity in 2040 with up to 10.7 GW running by the end of this decade, according to new market projections made by the Carbon Trust.
These estimates come from the Phase II summary report of the Floating Wind Joint Industry Project (JIP) that was released on Tuesday. According to the Carbon Trust, the project value of 70 GW of floating wind capacity currently amounts to GBP 195 billion (USD 246.2bn/EUR 215bn).
To date, there are only 73 MW of floating wind turbines installed and this is expected to increase to 124 MW by the end of the year. The largest system already installed is the 30-MW Hywind Scotland park off Aberdeenshire. The Floating Wind JIP is a collaborative research and development initiative formed in 2016 between the Carbon Trust, the government of Scotland and 15 international offshore wind developers. So far, projects have been concluded as part of Phase I and II of the initiative.
The first phase focused on electrical and mooring systems, and on logistics for the construction and operation of floating wind farms. Phase II work covered four main themes: turbine requirements and foundations scaling, heavy lift offshore operations, dynamic export cables and monitoring and inspection. Each section was informed by studies delivered by a different expert, namely Ramboll, Seaway 7, BPP Cable Solutions and Oceaneering. Ramboll’s study shows that only minor modifications would be required to accommodate larger turbines, aside from work on towers and controllers.
Also, the required relative primary steel, secondary steel and mooring mass decreases for larger turbines. Seaway 7 carried out a study, which showed that the industry is in need of vessels capable of undertaking the required heavy lift operations or alternative lifting solutions like climbing crane technology.
Presently, the availability of suitable floating heavy lift vessels is limited and there is a high cost associated with their utilisation. BPP Cable Solutions has implemented a project to assess the challenges of developing high voltage dynamic power cables for export purposes in floating wind farms and launched a competition for cable makers to develop suitable designs and conduct tests. Five sector players were selected for this.
Last but not least, Oceaneering carried out a study to find out there is a need for improvement in both the collection of data and its usage to inform and manage asset integrity for floating wind farms. Further projects will be delivered this year as part of Phase III and IV. Scotland’s energy minister, Paul Wheelhouse, said that the government is ready to support the work needed to address challenges in the floating wind segment. “The findings of this report from Phase II of the project are very much welcomed. It is particularly encouraging to see the significant growth projected for the floating offshore wind industry in the coming decades and we are keen to explore early opportunities associated with the ScotWind leasing round of Crown Estate Scotland, the electrification of production platforms in the oil and gas sector and for production of ‘green hydrogen’ for use in transport, heating and industry,” he stated.
Source: Renewables Now
Post-COVID Recovery: An Agenda for Resilience, Development and Equality
Increased uptake of renewables, energy efficiency and related energy-transition measures represent far-sighted investment amid the crisis set off by the COVID-19 pandemic. As part of short-term stimulus and recovery plans, the energy transition provides a crucial link to medium- and long-term global climate and sustainability goals.
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