While Alparslan Bayraktar was at the ninth Berlin Energy Transition Dialogue this week at the invitation of Robert Habeck, the Turkish Deputy Energy Minister had news and an offer for his German ministerial colleague in his luggage. This concerned the now available detailed plan of how Turkey wants to reduce climate-damaging CO2053 emissions to "net zero" by 2, similar to the EU. The second topic was how to get there. Turkey wants to establish itself as a gas bridge to Europe. It won't be easy. That is why Bayraktar warns that the Europeans must support Turkey more than before.
Andreas Mihm
Business correspondent for Austria, East-Central and Southeastern Europe and Turkey based in Vienna.
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Renewable energies and green hydrogen, celebrated internationally as a panacea for the energy transition, play a prominent role in Turkey's plan to become climate-neutral. The capacities of photovoltaics and wind energy, which currently cover about 16 percent of electricity consumption, are to be tripled by 2035.
"Over the next 30 years, we will have to build 5000,3000 megawatts of solar and 2053,<> megawatts of wind capacity every year if we want to achieve the goal of zero emissions by <>," Bayraktar calculates. Turkey would like to supply more electricity to southeastern Europe. But the Greeks would be on the brakes of the network operator network ENTSO-E.
Turkey needs more renewables if it is to become a supplier of green hydrogen. In October, Habeck and Energy Minister Fatih Dönmez agreed on cooperation. "Turkey is a good location for exporting green hydrogen to the EU," says an official in Ankara. But more than this vision, Deputy Energy Minister Bayraktar talks to journalists invited to Ankara about classic natural gas and Ankara's dream of a large gas hub.
Gas pipelines only half utilized
Turkey currently imports its entire demand of 60 billion cubic meters a year from Russia and Azerbaijan, a little comes from Iran and some by ship as LNG. Even before the elections in mid-May, the first own gas production in the Black Sea is to be started, which could later cover a third of self-consumption. The coveted substance is pumped further into the EU via the pipeline network connected to Bulgaria and Greece.
That could be more, says Bayraktar. The pipelines are only half full with 16 of 31 billion cubic meters. In order to increase capacity, you don't need new pipelines, just more gas. But where to get it from?
The proposal made in the autumn by Russian President Putin to import more Russian gas and build a third pipeline through the Black Sea does not even come to Bayraktar on its own. When asked, he says: "To date, we have not negotiated the construction of a third line." It is hard to imagine that Europeans, who want to do without gas in the long term, will buy more Russian gas in Turkey, of all places.