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Turkey's Renewable Energy Resource Zone Project (YEKA) inaugurated Turkey's first integrated solar module, cell and panel production factory at a ground-breaking ceremony in the capital Ankara on Thursday. The photovoltaic (PV) factory to be located in Ankara's industrial zone will produce components for Turkey's biggest solar plant facility, the YEKA project in Karapinar in the Konya province.

The factory will have 500 megawatts (MW) of ingot and wafer production capacity, 650 MW of solar cell capacity and 800 MW of solar panel capacity, Turkey's Energy and Natural Resources Minister said at the opening ceremony. According to Berat Albayrak in October 2016, the Karapinar solar project will meet the energy needs of more than 600,000 households.

In accordance with the rules of the tender, solar components are to be produced locally and the tender also stipulates that local engineers should constitute 80 percent of employment in the project.

At the ceremony held at the PV Cell and PV module Factory and Research and Development Center in Ankara, Albayrak said that the factory that attracted $500 million in private sector contributions was testament to the secure environment that Turkey has developed for investments adding that "Turkey is ready for global competitiveness in the energy sector." Turkey's private sector had attracted over $100 billion in 15 years, he said.

With the help of new energy investment, Turkey will reduce its energy dependency, a goal that the minister said is highly important for the country having had an energy expense bill of on average over $55 billion per year for the past 10 years. "A few years ago, the installed capacity was around 32 gigawatts (GW), currently Turkey is close to reaching 85 GW," he said.

In March 2017, the Kalyon-Hanwha consortium won the tender bid for the construction of the solar facility at a cost of $0.0699 per kilowatt-hour. Now this new integrated solar production factory will produce the equipment for this facility.

Also at the opening ceremony, Prime Minister of Turkey Binali Yildirim said that the solar production factory would be finished ahead of schedule within 12 months. The construction of the photovoltaic equipment production factory was agreed within 21 months following the signing of the tender agreement.

Yildirim explained that clean energy and the increased deployment of renewable energy is part of the country's goals to diversify its energy resources. He said that over the past few years, the use of clean energy sources and energy production from these sources, which increased from 20 percent to 32 percent, was insufficient for a country like Turkey.

"It is important for Turkey to increase the number of clean energy projects, and more importantly it is also important to build research and development centers so Turkish citizens can avail of new energy technologies," he added.

Source: AA

Since 2007, Turkey's wind energy sector attracted $12 billion in investments and reached 6.5 gigawatts of wind capacity. Turkish wind energy sector attracted $12.3 billion over the past 11 years, according to Turkish Wind Energy Association (TUREB) data on Thursday. Installed capacity in the country was around 146 megawatts in 2007 and has now reached a capacity of approximately 6,500 megawatts.

By the end of the year with the help of 1 gigawatt (GW) from the Turkish Renewable Energy Resource Zone Project (YEKA) along with finalized wind energy tenders of around 3 GW, Turkey's investment will reach around $5 billion in 2017 alone.

Among the cities in Turkey, Izmir on the Aegean coast ranked first with 1,333 MW of total installed capacity. Balikesir located in the Marmara region followed in second place with 1,069 MW, and Manisa also in the Aegean region ranked third with 650 MW of capacity.

In Turkey, 158 wind energy companies are actively operational with 6,500 MW of installed capacity, and 32 projects with 808 MW of installed capacity are under construction. According to recent data, Turkey generates 8 percent of its electricity from wind energy.

TUREB President Mustafa Serdar Ataseven said that Turkey boosted both wind energy installed capacity and attracted a substantial amount of foreign and local investments during the last five years. Moreover, he explained that with the addition of 2,130 MW of capacity, which will be finalized by the end of the year, a significant contribution to Turkey's wind market will be realized.

"In order to meet investors' demands, investors that have environmental impact assessment reports and electricity generation licenses should be provided with more electricity capacity to grow their investments and installed capacity," he explained.

According to the General Directorate of Renewable Energy studies, the techno-economic wind energy potential for Turkey is 48 GW but currently only 11GW of project stock is available. On Aug. 3, Turkey's first 1,000-megawatt wind tender was realized in Ankara in which a Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy - Turkerler - Kalyon Energy consortium won the tender offered by YEKA.

Turkey has 11GW of wind power stock available and has a national target of 20 GW of installed capacity by 2023. The country's total energy target for 2023 is 100 GW of capacity.

Source: AA

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced up to $100 million in funding for new projects as part of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy’s (ARPA‑E) latest OPEN funding opportunity. OPEN will support America’s top innovators through dozens of early-stage research and development projects as they build technologies to transform the nation’s energy system.

“The Department of Energy plays a critical role in keeping the United States safe and secure. One of the ways we do this is by promoting energy innovations that make us more competitive and keep us ahead of the technology curve,” said Secretary of Energy Rick Perry. “With OPEN 2018, we are asking American energy entrepreneurs and researchers to show us the next breakthrough in energy security.”

ARPA-E has issued previous OPEN solicitations in 2009, 2012, and 2015. Open solicitations enable ARPA-E to support transformational projects outside the scope of existing ARPA-E focused programs. The projects selected under OPEN in 2018 will pursue novel approaches to energy innovation across the full spectrum of energy applications. The agency collaborates across the Department’s extensive research enterprise, providing support that complements existing DOE-wide initiatives. The deadline to submit a concept paper is February 12, 2018 at 5:00 p.m.

Source: Energy.gov

European and national policies on Vocational Education and Training (VET) need to be informed by sound and internationally comparable statistical evidence. The VET country statistical overviews are concise, descriptive and user friendly statistical reports. For each country, they quantify and compare key aspects of VET and lifelong learning. The selection is based on the indicators' policy relevance and their importance in achieving the Europe 2020 objectives.
VET indicators for the Turkey for the last available year

Index numbers (EU=100)

Turkey’s performance on a range of indicators selected to monitor progress in VET and lifelong learning across the European Union (EU) is summarised below. The chart compares the situation in Turkey with that of the EU, based on the most recent data available (this differs by indicator). Data in the chart are presented as an index where the EU average equals 100. If the index for a selected indicator for Turkey is 100, then its performance equals the EU average. If the index is 90, its performance is 90% of (or 10% below) the EU average. If the index is 200, Turkey’s performance is twice (or 200%) the EU average. For some indicators, such as early leavers from education and training, a country is performing better if its score is below that of the EU average.
Key points
Access, attractiveness and flexibility
The share of Turkish upper secondary students enrolled in vocational programmes (49.0%) is slightly above the corresponding EU average (47.3%) (data for 2015). Nearly all upper secondary IVET students in Turkey are in programmes giving direct access to tertiary education (99.3%), in contrast with the EU (at 66.7%).
Adult participation in lifelong learning at 5.8% is relatively low compared to the EU average of 10.8%. This difference is also reflected in the participation rates of various subgroups. The rates for older people (0.7%) and low-educated adults (2.8%) enrolled in lifelong learning are considerably lower than the respective EU averages (7.0% and 4.2%). However, the rate for unemployed people (9.2%) enrolled in lifelong learning is only slightly below the EU average (9.6%). Also, young VET graduates are more likely to participate in further education (48.4%) than in the EU as a whole (32.8%).
Skill development and labour market relevance
Public expenditure on VET as a percentage of GDP in Turkey at 0.48% is below the corresponding EU average of 0.54% (data for 2014). The average expenditure per student, at 3 000 purchasing power standard (PPS) units, is considerably lower than the 8 400 PPS units in the EU. The percentage of short-cycle VET graduates among first time tertiary education graduates (at 39.1%) is much higher than the EU average (9.0%). The percentage of innovative enterprises with supportive training practices is near the percentage in the EU (43.0% versus 44.8% in the EU, based on data for 2014).
The employment rate for IVET graduates (aged 20-34) at ISCED levels 3-4 (67.3%) is relatively low compared to the EU average of 78.1%. Their employment rate is 8.7 percentage points higher than for graduates from general education (above the EU average premium of 5.7) and 12.5 percentage points higher than for graduates with lower-level qualifications (though this is below the EU average premium of 23.4 percentage points). All these employment data relate to 2016 and exclude young people in further education.
Overall transitions and labor market trends
In this section all data refer to 2016 unless otherwise stated.
The share of early leavers from education and training in Turkey (34.3%) is much higher than the EU average (10.7%), but this indicator has shown improvement over the recent years (with a decrease by 8.8 percentage points since 2010). At 26.5%, the share of 30 to 34 year-olds with tertiary-level education is below the EU average of 39.1%, but also after a considerable increase (by 11.0 percentage points) since 2010.
The NEET rate (30.7%) is twice as high as in the EU (15.2%). The unemployment rate for 20 to 34 year-olds has increased by 1.8 percentage points since 2014 while decreasing in the EU by 2.4 percentage points, giving Turkey (at 14.7% in 2016) a rate above the EU average (at 11.8%). Employment rates for 20 to 64 year-olds and recent graduates are lower than in the EU. The share of adults with a low level of educational attainment is much higher (64.4%) than in the EU (23.0%). In addition, the employment rate of 20 to 64 year-olds with a low level of educational attainment is lower in Turkey (48.3%) than in the EU (53.6%).
Score on VET indicators in Turkey and in the EU, 2010,
last available year and recent change

Source: Cedefop

Article

The role of DSOs in a Smart Grid environment

Smartening of the grid offers opportunities for changing the current energy markets into more efficient and flexible retail markets. This provides possibilities to develop new services and rearrange optimal network management – thereby introducing new actors to the energy system. New tasks and responsibilities will emerge for existing and new actors and existing ones will change. As a consequence, Distribution System Operators (DSOs) are facing several challenges. In this study, we analyse the role of DSOs in the smart grids environment.

The main research question to be answered by this study is: What are the roles and responsibilities of DSOs in the future energy retail market given the developments towards smart grids?

Please click here to read the full report.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions

The global community has made remarkable progress in driving down the costs and increasing the use of key clean energy options. However, these impressive gains are still insufficient to meet long-term climate goals while providing affordable, reliable, and secure energy supplies.

Source: http://mission-innovation.net/