With its 22 million square meters of solar panels across the country, Turkey saves itself $200 million a year on energy costs, according to the Turkish energy minister.
As a result of such widespread use, Turkey trails only China and the United States in using solar panels to heat water, Energy and Natural Resources Minister Fatih Donmez said Aug. 6.
“Solar collectors have been installed widely on the rooftops of Anatolia to ensure hot water. Considering this culture, it is not surprising that Turkey ranks third in the world in this area,” he said.
Germany, Brazil, India, Australia, Israel and Italy all trail Turkey in using solar panels to heat water, Dönmez said.
“We aim to create an investor profile [as a country that] produces its own electricity with new [solar] rooftop and façade applications,” said Dönmez.
“We want the rooftops of all homes, hotels, hospitals, public buildings, schools, farmhouses and industrial enterprises to shine with solar panels,” the minister added.
Turkey’s total installed solar energy capacity is around 6,000 megawatts, according to the Energy Ministry.
And thanks to tax incentives, as well as government permission for people to install solar panels providing up to 5 MW without a license, Turkey’s solar collector capacity has increased by 1,500 MW in the last two years.
Source: Hurriyet Daily News
The Turkish authorities’ economic policy response to COVID-19 was swift and comprehensive, the World Bank said, as the available data suggested the country, despite an initial surge in cases, was able to relatively quickly contain the spread and the worst health effects of the virus compared with other countries.
“Preliminary analysis seems to suggest that Turkey’s short-term containment measures and economic support may have helped to balance the health and economic impacts of COVID-19,” the bank said in its “Turkey Economic Monitor: Adjusting the Sails” report released on Tuesday.
As of Tuesday, Turkey reported a total of 243,180 COVID-19 infections and 226,155 recoveries, according to Health Ministry data. The country's death toll from the disease stood at 5,873. The coronavirus pandemic has claimed over 737,500 lives in 188 countries and regions since it originated in China last December. More than 20.1 million COVID-19 cases have been reported worldwide, with recoveries standing at around 12.4 million, according to figures compiled by the U.S.' Johns Hopkins University.
“Turkey’s pandemic response may offer some lessons,” it noted, adding, however, that continued vigilance is essential to sustain this fragile trend.
“A swift and comprehensive policy response to the pandemic helped to mitigate the worst of the effects, and has set the stage for an earlier recovery, assuming the virus remains under control and policy measures continue to be adjusted to the evolution of the pandemic and developments in the national and global economies,” said Auguste Kouame, World Bank country director for Turkey.
COVID-19 has been an unprecedented global health pandemic that has quickly turned into one of the deepest economic shocks of modern times, the bank said. The jolt to global demand has had negative impacts on Turkey’s trade and financial flows. These, the report said, combined with necessary containment measures, led to a sudden halt in Turkey’s domestic demand and output over the course of April and May. The country’s witnessed a rebound in June, however, it said there were still effects on private consumption, which tend to be more resilient. After reporting its first COVID-19 case in mid-March, Turkey relatively quickly implemented social distancing, mobility restrictions and health policies.
“This may have enabled more targeted measures compared to countries that reacted later, forcing them into more widespread lockdowns,” the bank said.
Targeted measures, in turn, it added, could have helped contain the spread of the virus, mortality rates and perhaps even some of the decline in economic activity. “Lessons from other countries suggest that health, social distancing and some mobility measures should be maintained to prevent the risks of a second wave,” it noted.
The economic impact of the COVID-19 has understandably derailed the re-balancing in Turkey, the report noted. It said that by the second half of 2019, the economy had started to gradually recover from the fluctuations in mid-2018, adding that inflation moderated and external balances narrowed.
The contraction in trade and tourism due to a collapse in global demand led to a reappearance of the current account deficit in the country in the second quarter of the year, according to the report. It came after the country’s 12-month running current account ended 2019 in a surplus for the first time since 2001, as the measures that were taken over the last year and the re-balancing in the economy brought a gradual decline in the current account deficit.
According to the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (CBRT) data, which was revised in January as part of the bank’s new calculation method, the current account surplus amounted to $8 billion in 2019.
The annual current account deficit had amounted to about $52.4 billion on a 12-month basis in May 2018. The annualized surplus of 1.1% of the gross domestic product (GDP) in the fourth quarter of 2019 declined to 0.2% of GDP by the first quarter of 2020, the World Bank’s report said, adding that the current account was projected to have dropped further to an estimated deficit of 1.6% in the second quarter.
“Though exports rebounded in June, the decline in tourism receipts and ongoing global mobility restrictions have maintained a wedge in the current account,” the bank said.
Among others, the report highlighted that the country’s manufacturing showed signs of a rebound in June – reflective of a base effect from nearly three months of closure – but services have remained relatively muted. The bank said the country’s manufacturing rebounded in June with the easing of containment measures and buoyed by supportive monetary policy.
Source: Daily Sabah
Wind and solar energy doubled its share of the global power mix over the last five years, moving the world closer to a path that would limit the worst effects of global warming.
The sources of renewable energy made up nearly 10% of power in most parts of the world in the first half of this year, according to analysis from U.K. environmental group Ember.
That decarbonization of the power grid was boosted this year as shutdowns to contain the coronavirus reduced demand overall, leaving renewables to pick up the slack.
Ember analyzed generation in 48 countries that represent 83% of global electricity. The data showed wind and solar power increased 14% in the first half of 2020 compared with the same period last year while global demand fell 3% because of the impact of the coronavirus. At the same time that wind turbines and solar panels have proliferated, coal’s share of the mix has fallen around the world. In some places, mainly western European countries, coal has been all but eliminated from electricity generation.
China relied on the dirtiest fossil fuel for 68% of its power five years ago. That share dipped to 62% this year and renewables made up 10% of all electricity generated.
Still, the growth of renewables may not be going fast enough for the world to hit its climate goals and coal is still being burnt for power in many parts of the world.
Coal use needs to fall by about 79% by 2030 from last year’s levels - a fall of 13% every year throughout the decade to come, Ember said. New installations of wind farms are set to hold more or less steady in the next five years, according to data from BloombergNEF. That will make it difficult to realize a sustained pace of doubling renewable power every five years.
“If your expectations are that we need to be on target for 1.5 degrees, clearly we’re not going fast enough,” said Dave Jones, an analyst at Ember.
As a switch to renewables and gas has dramatically reduced coal generation in Europe and the U.S., China is left with a growing share of the fossil fuel. While it leads the world in new renewable power installations as well as building hydro dams and nuclear plants, the country still relies on coal for most of its growing power needs. China now makes up about 54% of the world’s coal power generation, up from 44% in 2015, according to Ember.
Source: Bloomberg
Germany’s government has set out to accelerate planning procedures for infrastructure projects linked to the energy transition. Angela Merkel’s cabinet today approved the draft for an investment acceleration law that should speed up the construction of onshore wind turbines. The law will accelerate planning and approval procedures and shorten administrative court proceedings.
The same will apply in areas of climate-friendly mobility where electrification and digitalisation of railways should become smoother, federal transport minister Andreas Scheuer said." This is an important future signal for Germany as an investment location […] and a good signal for onshore wind energy and the energy transition,” economy minister Peter Altmaier said in a press release. As a next step, the draft law will be presented to parliament, which may introduce changes and gets the final say by voting on the bill.
The expansion of onshore wind power – Germany's most important renewable energy source – has been severely depressed in recent years due to bureaucratic hurdles, plus protests and lawsuits by local resident groups. The number of newly installed wind power turbines in Germany doubled in the first half of 2020 compared to the same period last year, yet overall remained one of the lowest levels in the past 15 years. The economy ministry has said it will table a reform of Germany's renewable energy act in autumn, which is meant to fast-track wind power expansion and better include residents financially in wind power projects in their neighbourhood.
Source: Clean Energy Wire
New research carried out for the National Infrastructure Commission shows how sharp declines in the cost of renewable generation mean that Britain should aim for renewables to meet two-thirds of electricity needs by 2030 and that this can be delivered at the same overall cost as meeting only half of total demand by that date.
The findings show the UK could make significant progress towards its net zero greenhouse gas emissions target if the rights steps are taken – leading the Commission to update its recommended target for deployment of renewables as part of a low-cost low carbon electricity system, from 50% to 65% by 2030.
The latest analysis reflects the impact of the falling cost of renewable electricity technologies and the relative speed with which they have proven to be built. Shifts in government policy to support more renewable electricity schemes as part of a green recovery would encourage private investment to drive innovation and could help provide confidence in the economy at a crucial time, the report notes.
The Commission’s report also notes that government has made a number of recent positive commitments on renewables deployment, including setting a goal to deliver 40 GW of offshore wind power by 2030, and schemes to encourage more onshore wind and solar power projects. The Commission welcomes these steps and recommends that a refreshed pipeline of ‘contracts for difference’ auctions – a government-guaranteed contract that offers generators a fixed revenue stream for the power it provides – should be set out to accelerate more offshore wind, onshore wind and solar power projects.
The report further notes that renewables alone cannot create a resilient energy system for future decades, and that further work on new storage technologies, efficient interconnectors, and other innovations are needed to support renewables and ensure the security of the electricity system. This could include an increased role for low carbon hydrogen generation, as envisaged in the Commission’s report Net Zero: Opportunities for the Power Sector, published in March 2020.
Chair of the National Infrastructure Commission, Sir John Armitt, said: “The government should be credited for recent steps to encourage quicker deployment of renewables, and for setting up successful mechanisms for encouraging private sector investments. These latest projections suggest we can afford to go further, faster without hitting consumers in the pocket.
“The National Infrastructure Strategy needs to include a long term policy on future energy that reflects these facts and helps deliver the green recovery we all want to see.”
Source: Smart Energy International
A group of researchers from Turkey’s Middle East Technical University (METU) and Gumushane University have developed a new way to calculate the solar irradiation on the rear side of bifacial solar modules.
The scientists said that the technique can be applied to any kind of PV project or site conditions, without the need for high computational power.
They presented their findings in “Solar irradiation on the rear surface of bifacial solar modules : a modelling approach” which was recently published in Scientific Reports. The new technique is a modified version of the isotropic diffuse model, which is also known as the Liu and Jordan model. It assumes that diffuse radiance is uniformly distributed.
They started to modify the model by treating the rear side as the front side. They did this by taking the complementary angle of the tilt angle as the real tilt angle. “This correction contributes to the ground reflected irradiation component higher than the one in the original version as expected,” the scientists said.
The second modification involved altering the ratio of beam irradiation on the rear side of the bifacial panels. “The beam contribution on the rear surface is due to the symmetry of the path of the Sun,” the academics explained. “There is only beam contribution on the rear surface for the sunrise and the sunset hours.”
They performed calculations for the period between sunrise and sunset. The PVForm algorithms, developed by Sandia National Laboratories in the United States, were used to calculate the power yield of bifacial modules through the proposed approach. The researchers said the difference between irradiation on the bottom, middle, and top parts of the panel’s rear side was crucial in the modeling approach. The model was tested via two different statistical models – the mean bias error and the root mean square error.
“To make the verification of the model more comprehensive, the annual energy yield of the bifacial PV module is estimated,” the researchers said. “The results showed that estimated and measured rear side solar irradiance values agree quite well.”
They claimed that the rear side of the panels receive more light on the top and bottom back, while the middle part receives less light due to shading. The method is said to work well on both sunny and cloudy days.
Source: PV Magazine
Current and Future Global Climate Impacts Resulting from COVID-19
The direct effect of the pandemic-driven response will be negligible, with a cooling of around 0.01 ± 0.005 °C by 2030 compared to a baseline scenario that follows current national policies. In contrast, with an economic recovery tilted towards green stimulus and reductions in fossil fuel investments, it is possible to avoid future warming of 0.3 °C by 2050.
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