
Breadcrumbs
The south can unlock Türkiye’s solar ambitions
As the hydro-rich eastern Türkiye reeled from two droughts in five years, a surge in wind and solar helped cushion the blow. Solar potential in southern provinces is key to achieving steady renewable electricity growth.
Available in: Türkçe
Highlights
17%
İzmir’s share of national wind generation in 2022
20%
Konya’s share of national solar generation in 2022
x5.1
The rise in unlicensed solar capacity applications in 2022
About
Ember’s analysis reveals the changes in Türkiye’s electricity generation from clean sources on a province-level basis by presenting monthly generation data for 2018-2022. It identifies areas for improvement by incorporating additional data from several pathway studies, renewable generation potential calculations, and capacity applications and auctions. The report emphasizes the need for accelerated solar deployment and discusses related policy developments…
Executive summary
Türkiye needs to focus on provinces with high solar potential to achieve its clean electricity targets
In 2021 and 2022, non-hydro renewable electricity generation overtook hydropower in Türkiye. By growing other renewable generation, this should become the rule instead of the exception to eliminate reliance on fossil fuels.
Azem Yıldırım Türkiye Analyst, Ember
The locus of renewable energy in Türkiye is shifting from the hydro-rich east to the west where wind and solar are prevalent. Two dry periods in five years have shown that non-hydro renewables are key to making sure Türkiye’s energy transition is not hindered by droughts. Türkiye needs to utilize its sunny southern provinces more efficiently to realize its electricity transition.

Hydro
Frequent droughts expose hydro’s vulnerability
Hydro is Türkiye’s largest clean power generator, but two dry periods in five years have exposed hydro’s increased variability and unreliability.
During long periods of drought, Türkiye currently substitutes gas-fired electricity for lost hydro power. Since electricity demand for cooling also increases during hot summers, droughts have an intense adverse effect on the share of renewable energy in Türkiye’s total power generation. If drought in winter and spring means that the reservoirs of dammed hydro power plants are not replenished sufficiently, hydro generation cannot meet this rise in electricity demand for cooling in the summer. Since non-hydro renewable capacity is not currently sufficient to fill this gap, gas power generation spikes in the summers of dry years.
As capacity additions and plant modernization can only increase hydro generation to a very limited extent in the future, it is wind and solar deployment that must accelerate to eliminate the need for fossil substitutes during times of drought.
Solar
Konya solar leaps, sunny Antalya fails to reach its potential
Konya province has recorded a more than threefold growth in solar generation over five years. Sunny southern provinces must follow its lead if Türkiye is to achieve its renewables targets.
Among targets outlined in Türkiye’s National Energy Plan, those for solar capacity are the most ambitious. The plan aims for solar to become the energy source with the largest capacity by 2035, with the 9.4 GW capacity in 2022 rising to 32.9 GW by 2030 before reaching 52.9 GW in 2035.
Annual solar capacity additions will need to triple from current levels to achieve this target. However, the government’s solar capacity target is still lower than the capacity Ember calls for to halve fossil fuel imports for power generation by 2030, which is 40 GW. Yearly solar capacity additions will need to quadruple to achieve this target.
Though Türkiye has higher photovoltaic potential than most European countries, its electricity generation from solar was only 15.3 TWh or 4.7% of total generation in 2022. To put into context, Türkiye’s generation is currently on par with countries that have lower solar potential, such as Poland and Ukraine.
Wind
İzmir, Çanakkale and İstanbul have the wind in their sails
Western provinces on the Aegean and Marmara coasts drive the increase in wind generation.
Wind is one of Türkiye’s largest sources of renewable electricity, despite a lower wind potential than that of solar. In 2022, the country generated 35 TWh of wind, corresponding to 11% of total electricity generation.
The National Energy Plan aims for 18 GW of wind capacity by 2030, up from 11 GW at the end of 2022. This is not a sufficiently ambitious target given that Ember analysis has shown that at least 30 GW of wind is needed by 2030 to halve fossil fuel imports for electricity generation.
Progress on renewables
Other renewables cushioned the blow from hydro, now they must take the lead
Türkiye has access to diverse renewable energy sources, and it has progressed in all of them. Generation from non-hydro renewables must accelerate to achieve steady clean electricity growth.
Türkiye generated a record amount of electricity from renewable sources in 2022 despite the fact that hydro generation did not recover to pre-drought levels.
Wind and solar stepped up to fill the gap and lessen the impact of low hydro output on total renewable electricity generation. Türkiye must now accelerate wind and solar deployment to mitigate the future risks of volatile hydropower output, hit its renewable electricity targets and ensure energy security.
Supporting Material
Methodology
Data
For Türkiye’s 2018-2022 licensed generation data “real-time-generation” web services of the Turkish power market operator’s (EPİAŞ) Transparency API are used. This data was then combined with electricity market production license data from the Energy Market Regulatory Authority (EPDK) using fuzzy matching and checked manually.
For unlicensed generation, EPDK’s monthly electricity generation reports are used.
The solar radiation statistics for the solar capacity map are based on Solargis data for Türkiye. Provincial averages were calculated by Ember via a Python script.
Unlicensed project application data is taken from the websites of individual electricity distribution companies. ADM Elektrik Dağıtım A.Ş., which covers Aydın, Denizli and Muğla, was not included in the calculations due to missing data. For Meram Elektrik Dağıtım A.Ş., which covers Konya, Aksaray, Niğde, Kırşehir, Nevşehir and Karaman, partial data was used as applications for January, March, June, July, August and September 2021 were not reported.
Acknowledgements
We appreciate the valuable review and feedback received from Ufuk Alparslan, Sarah Brown, Alison Candlin and Claire Kaelin. We thank Matt Ewen for providing the data required to conduct our analysis, and Chelsea Bruce-Lockhart for her valuable contributions to data visualization.
Image creditIhsan Gercelman / Alamy Stock Photo