President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan attended the “Mass Opening Ceremony of Hydroelectric Power Plants Commissioned by the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources” held in Tokat via videoconference from Vahdettin Mansion.
Erdoğan expressed his wishes for the newly-built hydroelectric power plants to be successful and congratulated the institutions, the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources, engineers, workers, and contractors that contributed to their construction.
Noting that the power plants which he believed would contribute to Turkey's energy sector were the symbols of progress, development and growth Erdoğan said, “These are the stepping-stones of civilization to us. Turkey, along with the healthcare services during the pandemic period, continued to invest in almost every field and thus demonstrated its determination to achieve the 2023 goals. It is not possible for a country without energy to speak of civilization, development, and industrialization. During a time when the world has withdrawn into itself, Turkey has shown that it has not succumbed to the pandemic by demonstrating a positive resolution in supporting investment, development, and employment.”
“We have thwarted the games and traps set against our country in the Eastern Mediterranean.”
Underscoring that the environment of trust created through great struggles and efforts had reflected positively on energy investments, President Erdoğan stated the following:
“First of all, we made sure the local and foreign investors trusted the future, energy, and the legal system of Turkey. By this means we ensured that over the past 18 years the public and private sectors invested more than 100 billion dollars in energy. We have established supply stability with liquefied gas, floating storage and re-gasification terminal, as well as underground natural gas storage facilities. We have launched the first and only natural gas market in our region. We provided natural gas to all 81 provinces. With international pipelines such as TANAP and TurkStream, we strengthened the position of Turkey as an energy hub country.”
Recalling that drilling activities had been started in seas with Turkey’s drilling ships, Fatih and Yavuz, Erdoğan said, “We have thwarted the games and traps set against our country especially in the Eastern Mediterranean. After the Eastern Mediterranean, we have taken action for exploration and drilling activities in the Black Sea. Without making any concessions on our rights arising from international law, we will continue our works. With the permission of Allah, we will run the first reactor of the Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant in 2023. Thanks to this project, we will both diversify our electricity production and make our energy portfolio more balanced. "
Pointing out that they were working hard to extract the mines, Erdoğan expressed that the record in coal production in the history of the republic was broken by 101.5 million tons.
Stating that they introduced the period of processed products for the ores, especially boron ore, President Erdoğan continued his remarks as follows:
"We will export our ores that we previously sold abroad as raw materials due to the lack of technology, now by processing through our technology and our human resources. The biggest share of our energy investments has gone to our renewable energy sector. We see renewable energy in the steps that we are taking nowadays. We are one of the leading countries of the world in renewable energy. In terms of renewable energy installed capacity, we rank the 13th in the world and the 6th in Europe. And we rank the 9th in the world and the 2nd in Europe in hydroelectricity; the 12th in the world and the 7th in Europe in wind-power; the 14th in the world and the 7th in Europe in solar energy; the 4th in the world and the 1st in Europe in geothermal energy.
“We have reached an important stage in the YE-KA (Renewable Energy Resources Zone) model that we have launched for the development of domestic R&D and domestic technology in renewable energy. We will open Turkey's first domestic integrated solar panel factory in August. Our factory, which will produce solar panels with 500 megawatts capacity annually, will also create employment for 1400 people. “
President Erdoğan noted that Turkey, in 2019, ranked the second in Europe in terms of electricity generated from renewable sources.
Erdoğan stressed that Turkey ranked the second among OECD countries in the last 18 years with electricity demand growth of an average of 5 percent.
Erdoğan said, "To meet this growth primarily with domestic and renewable resources, we have achieved an average installed power growth of 6.1 percent annually in the last 18 years, thus ranking the first among OECD countries."