E-Newsletter

Turkey has pushed the button to transform its outdated coal-fired power plants through the latest technologies to make them much more environmentally friendly, a process that will be completed in 2019, a top official has announced.

Speaking at the Eighth Istanbul International Center for Energy and Climate (IICEC) Forum in Istanbul, Energy Minister Berat Albayrak elaborated on the cabinet’s renewable energy steps, adding that Turkey’s pollution classification must be revised.

“Some 64 percent of the installed power capacity was based on renewable power resources in the first eight months of the year. In terms of the newly-installed power capacity from renewable resources, Turkey became the third in Europe with these numbers. Some 35,874 megawatts, or 44.8 percent, of Turkey’s total installed power capacity at 81,355 MW come from renewable sources,” he said, adding that the Energy Ministry also set the required infrastructure to turn all coal-fired power plants into ecological-friendly facilities.

“We will transform all outdated coal-fired power plants through the latest ecological-friendly technologies. We plan to complete our green investments in these power plants by 2019 in an effort to minimize their negative impacts on public health and nature,” Albayrak said.

He also slammed Turkey’s classification as a polluter and noted the country was one of the least air polluters worldwide.

Eligible consumers increased by 3% in Sept. month-on-month -- in Istanbul by over 1.3M, Izmir with 445K and Antalya with 373Krn

The number of electricity consumers who are able to exercise their right to buy electricity from their preferred provider increased by 3 percent in September compared to August, according to the latest Energy Exchange Istanbul (EXIST) data on Thursday.

These eligible consumers, who availed of more competitive tariffs, totaled 4.62 million in September in Turkey.

Consumers who use more than 2,400 kilowatt-hours of electricity per year qualified as eligible consumers in 2017. In other words, customers with a monthly power bill over 82 Turkish liras ($22.58) were classified as eligible.

In September, Istanbul, Turkey's largest populated city, contained the largest number of eligible consumers totaling 1.3 million. Izmir and Antalya followed with 445,781 and 373,642 people, respectively.

EXIST divides consumers who qualify into categories from which residential consumers were the largest with over 3.25 million followed by the business sector with 1.31 million eligible consumers.

Renewable energy might be clean, but it's not always reliable if the Sun ducks behind clouds or the wind slacks off. To counter that variability, the grid will need to combine a range of different sources, such as solar, wind, hydro, waves, and biomass, with large-scale energy storage systems. Now, an MIT team has developed a new type of battery that could fit the bill. It breathes air, and can store energy long-term for about a fifth of the cost of existing technologies.

The new design is a rechargeable flow battery, meaning its cathode and anode components are liquids (catholyte and anolyte) that pass ions back and forth to store or release energy. In this case, the anolyte is made up of sulfur dissolved in water, and the hunt for an equally abundant material for the catholyte led the team to an oxygenated liquid salt solution.

"We went on a search for a positive electrode that would also have exceptionally low cost that we could use with sulfur as the negative electrode," says Yet-Ming Chiang, co-author of the study. "Through an accidental laboratory discovery, we figured out that it could actually be oxygen, and therefore air. We needed to add one other component, which was a charge carrier to go back and forth between the sulfur and air electrode, and that turned out to be sodium."

The clever part of the battery is the fact that the catholyte "breathes" in air in from outside while discharging, and exhales while recharging. By this mechanism, the battery creates negatively-charged hydroxide ions in the catholyte while inhaling, and while recharging that oxygen is released, creating hydrogen ions which then send electrons back into the anolyte.

"This battery literally inhales and exhales air, but it doesn't exhale carbon dioxide, like humans — it exhales oxygen," says Chiang. "What this does is create a charge balance by taking oxygen in and out of the system."

Lithium-air batteries use the same mechanism, but sulfur, water and salt are far cheaper materials, and cost-cutting is key to scaling up energy storage systems for use with the grid. The researchers say their battery would cost far less to make and run than lithium-ion batteries, while retaining almost the same energy density. Once in use, they estimate a scaled-up version of their flow battery would cost between US $20 and $30 per kWh stored to run, compared to about $100 per kWh for other storage systems.

The current prototype is about the size of a coffee cup, according to the researchers, but they're confident the design can be scaled up for use in larger applications. The team next plans to make the battery more efficient, less expensive, and expand its working life from its current 1,500 hours.

Article
Regulation and Investment Incentives in Electricity Distribution:
An Empirical Assessment

In this paper we analyze the investment behavior of electricity distribution companies. First, we test whether the implementation of an incentive-based regulatory scheme with revenue caps impacts the firms’ investment decisions. Second, we test if the specific regulatory design to determine the revenue caps impacts the firms’ investment behavior.

Read More…