ENERGY NEWS - TURKEY
Turkey Breaks Ground On 1st Lithium-Ion Battery Plant

The foundations for Turkey's first lithium-ion battery production facility was laid in the country's central province of Kayseri, its CEO said Friday.

Ismail Hakki Dogankaya said at the groundbreaking ceremony that with the investment, Turkey would become a regional leader in batteries.

"The defense industry's strategic military needs will be produced domestically," said Dogankaya, who heads Aspilsan Energy, one of Turkey's leading energy companies.

The sprawling facility, comprising of a closed area of 24,000 square meters (over 258,000 square feet) in an organized industrial zone in Kayseri city's eastern outskirts, is planned for completion next year, he said.

Also at the ceremony, Ismail Demir, the head of Turkey's Defense Industries Presidency, said Turkey is approaching its goal of participating in all stages from design to production in the defense industry.

"Considering both past experiences and current threats, as well as security problems of our country, we know very well how important it is to have an effective defense presence for the future of Turkey," he noted.

With the lithium-ion battery production facility, he said, the dependence on foreign resources in the field of energy storage will decrease.

Emphasizing that Turkey made great breakthroughs in its defense industry in recent years, Demir said: "The number of projects, which had been 66 18 years ago, has reached 700 today.

"Sector turnover rose from $1 billion to $11 billion. Our exports exceeded $3 billion from $250 million. The number of companies has reached approximately 1,500 from 56."

He added that the Turkish Armed Forces and other security bodies have been using domestically-produced weapons systems to a great extent.

Aspilsan Enerji is owned by the Turkish Armed Forces Foundation with a 98% share and was established in the Kayseri Organized Industrial Zone in 1981.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Investment Demand in Turkey Rises Despite Pandemic: Minister

Despite the coronavirus pandemic, Turkey’s investment demand followed a stronger course this January to August compared to the same period last year, the country’s industry and technology minister said on Oct. 2. 

“We supported the private sector’s fixed investments worth 127 billion liras (over $16 billion) with 6,296 incentive certificates,” Mustafa Varank, said in an online conference.

The investment demand of the real sector in the first eight months of 2020 was up by 30% compared to last year, he added.

He said those investments, once completed, will create job opportunities for 191,000 people.

Pointing to the rise in orders, production, and capacity utilization rates in the manufacturing industry, Varank said the confidence of both consumers and producers in the economy has started to increase.

“Production increased in eight out of 10 sectors in September,” he said, adding that the most striking aspect of latest data is the increase in speed of employment creation.

“Firms have seen the highest employment growth since February 2018, along with increased orders,” the minister said.

“We expect a strong growth rate in the third quarter since investment and production are on the rise, and by putting up a good performance, Turkey will get through this difficult year with minimum losses.”

Source: Hurriyet Daily News

ENERGY NEWS - WORLD
Spain Sets $10.5 Billion Goal for Green Hydrogen

Spain is stepping up its efforts to enter the race to build a hydrogen industry, putting it on par with France and Germany in seeking a greener fuel for heavy industry.

The government in Madrid has a roadmap to build 4 gigawatts of green hydrogen capacity by 2030 and is expected to announce Cabinet approval of the program on Tuesday, according to Sara Aagesen, the secretary of state of energy. The program would require an investment of 8.9 billion euros ($10.5 billion) within the next decade. 

“Things are getting very competitive,” Aagesen said in an interview on Monday. “Spain has the capacity to become a relevant player in the renewable hydrogen sector by taking advantage of our high potential of generating renewable power at very competitive prices.” 

The European Union has put hydrogen at the heart of its measures to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% in 2030 and to become climate neutral by 2050.

Hydrogen, if it’s made with renewables, could replace oil, natural gas and coal and help eliminate about a third of emissions from industries like steel and cement by mid-century, according to BloombergNEF. The processes to make green hydrogen aren’t yet economically viable without government support. 

Spain’s plan includes 60 measures that will help establish a hydrogen supply chain, according to a government document seen by Bloomberg. The roadmap targets manufacturing plants with a capacity to make 300 to 600 megawatts of hydrogen from renewables by 2024 and 4 gigawatts by 2030. That would represent 10% of the EU’s target, which is for 40 gigawatts by 2030. Spain plans to start measuring hydrogen production by energy source and to review targets at least every three years. 

Source: Bloomberg

What a Higher EU 2030 Climate Target Means for Member States Like Germany?

The European Commission under president Ursula von der Leyen has proposed to increase the bloc’s 2030 greenhouse gas emissions reduction target to "at least 55 percent". The European Parliament’s environment committee has endorsed an even higher target (60% reduction) and the full plenary will vote in October. German chancellor Angela Merkel on 30 September endorsed the Commission proposal. Germany, which currently holds the presidency of the EU Council, aims to bring EU member states to agree on 55 percent. Depending on the eventual target and how the EU chooses to reach it, the impact on member states will vary widely. While German industry warns that raising it according to von der Leyen’s proposal would pose a great challenge, environmental organisations are calling for a higher target to meet the Paris climate agreement goals. Experts say that the Commission proposal would very likely require the bloc to phase out coal almost entirely by 2030.

On 4 March 2020, the European Commission proposed the European Climate Law, which would make the goal of the bloc’s climate neutrality by 2050 legally binding. Another element of the law – for now left blank – will be a more ambitious greenhouse gas reduction target by the year 2030 for the Union as a whole. This would be Europe’s contribution to global efforts to meet the goals of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.

Commission president Ursula von der Leyen last year proposed a new target of 50 to 55 percent and specified this towards the high end of this range in her first State of the Union speech on 16 September 2020. Details on how to get emissions down to that target were presented a day later.

Then, member states and the European Parliament will have their say and in the end all three institutions will have to agree on a new target. The environment committee of the European Parliament has come out in favour of a 60% reduction and a full plenary vote is scheduled for October.

While the EU is on track to overshoot its current target of reducing emissions by 40 percent, raising it to "at least 55 percent" would require significant additional efforts by the member states. Talks on the exact target which the German Council presidency aims to facilitate could become quite a challenge. Certain eastern European countries, which rely on traditional polluting industries and face a hard time dealing with the economic and social transition necessary in order to become climate neutral, have been especially sceptical. The environment ministers of Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia had called on the Commission to present a “realistic” assessment of the impact of a higher target.

Other member states, such as the Nordic countries, are among those pushing for more ambition. Finland said it is actively promoting to raise the target to “at least 55 percent”, as did Denmark and Sweden, which added that it should be in line with the Paris Agreement 1.5° goal.

How exactly the EU chooses to reach the new goal – which instruments and measures it employs – will ultimately determine how much each country has to ratchet up its national ambitions. Tough negotiations are ahead not only to agree the target by the end of this year, but to implement the complete overhaul of EU energy and climate legislation in the months or even years that follow.

Source: Clean Energy Wire

UK Network Operators Collaborate on Flexibility

Four UK distribution network operators (DNOs) are joining forces to provide providers with a direct path to participate in flexibility on multiple networks.

The four DNOs are Western Power Distribution, SP Energy Networks, Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks and Northern Powergrid. Going forward they will signpost and operate their flexibility requirements on the ‘Flexible Power’ platform.

The move is a direct response to customer feedback calling for a simpler way to engage in the distribution flexibility services market, according to a statement. It should help streamline the process for flexibility providers and make interfacing with DNOs simpler and easier by avoiding the complexities and resource intensity associated with liaising with each individually.

Flex providers will be able to view flexibility locations, requirement data, procurement notices and documentation published by all four DNOs on a single, joint website. Once contracted, providers will be given access to the joint Flexible Power portal where they will be able to declare their flexible assets’ availability, receive dispatch signals and view performance and settlement reports.

Flexible Power was developed by Western Power Distribution for its flexibility procurement in 2017.

The DNOs intend to work in partnership to further develop the Flexible Power brand and develop the portal functionality to enable interface capability with other flexibility platforms so wider market participation options can increasingly be made available to providers.

“This marks a huge step forward towards convergence within distribution system operations and should simplify the journey for flexibility service providers,” says Graham Halladay, Western Power Distribution’s operations director. “I hope to see the increased coverage of regions using Flexible Power open up many more opportunities to our existing providers.”

With the need for collaboration within and between distribution and transmission operators, more such shared platforms can be expected to emerge in the future.

Source: Smart Energy International

Floating PV Paired with Hydroelectric Dams to Cover Peak Load

Researchers from the Lahore University of Management Sciences in Pakistan have examined the potential to deploy floating PV on a body of water connected to one of the country’s hydroelectric dams.

They published their findings in “Complementing hdyroelectric power with floating solar PV for daytime peak electricity demand”,” which was recently published in Renewable Energy. 

Pakistan covers around 30% of its power demand with hydroelectric dams. Some of these facilities are of considerable size, like the Tarbela Dam, which reportedly has 3.5 GW of generating capacity. The University of Lahore scientists modeled the implementation of a floating array at the 1.45 GW Ghazi Barotha Dam, which features five generating units with around 290 MW of capacity each.

To cover daytime peak loads, installing a 200 MW floating system on the dam’s reservoir could replace one of the five generating units if water levels are low. The researchers noted that Pakistan suffers frequent outages due to peak load hours during the day. The floating solar plant would work like a peaker plant, they said. 

In terms of grid integration, the co-location of floating PV arrays with hydroelectric dams offers the chance to tap into existing infrastructure to cut costs. The scientists compared two approaches. In the first, they connected a floating PV system directly to a 500 kV transmission line system. In the other approach, they added a 132 kV sub-station.

They determined that the cost of connecting a solar PV array to the grid accounts for about 25% of total project costs. However, that shrinks considerably when such projects use the existing infrastructure of hydroelectric dams. With an additional 132 kV substation, the utilization rate can also be ramped up. The scientists suggested that a substation with import and export functions could distribute power more efficiently when a solar array is not generating at full load.

Source: Pv Magazine

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