Alparslan Bayraktar, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, said, “We aim to establish important energy cooperation with Saudi Arabia. The material amount has not been clarified. We see that they are interested in a 4-5 thousand megawatt renewable energy project.”
Bayraktar made evaluations about Turkiye’s energy agenda in the program he attended in A Haber.
Reminding that cooperation in energy was discussed with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), to which President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made an official visit as part of his Gulf tour, Bayraktar said that Saudi Arabia and Qatar also want to develop energy projects with Turkiye.
Bayraktar stated that they have focused heavily on energy projects that are likely to be realized with the UAE for the last two months, and said, “There is a set of agreements worth $50.7 billion in total with the UAE. $29.7 billion of this is energy projects. We have a project set in which renewable energy, wind, solar, offshore wind energy projects, natural gas, hydrogen and green ammonia production are the predominant part in energy projects.”
Emphasizing that the Gulf countries are particularly interested in the field of renewable energy in Turkiye, Bayraktar said, “As companies investing in Turkiye know our country, we aim to establish an important energy cooperation with Saudi Arabia in that sense. The financial amount has not been clarified. We see that they are interested in a 4-5 thousand megawatt renewable energy project. We want to develop regional cooperation in the surrounding countries, both in electricity and natural gas. There, too, we saw that the UAE and Saudi Arabia had aspirations and demands.”
5 thousand megawatt investment target in renewable energy
Pointing out that Turkiye aims to invest 3,500 megawatts of solar and 1500 megawatts of wind energy every year until 2035, Bayraktar said, “When we consider a power plant that can produce electricity continuously, we will have commissioned approximately 6 new Ataturk Dams when we implement these projects.”
Stating that nuclear should be included in Turkiye’s energy basket in order to combat climate change, reduce foreign dependency and supply security, Bayraktar said, “Akkuyu gained nuclear facility status with the arrival of the fuel on the field on April 27. Hopefully, in 2024, we want to produce the first electricity from this field, the first reactor. Thus, in the following years, 10% of Turkiye’s electricity demand will be met from Akkuyu with approximately 4 reactors, with other reactors coming into operation.”
Regarding new nuclear energy projects, Bayraktar said:
“We are negotiating mainly with the People’s Republic of China and related companies for the Thrace project. Our negotiations have reached a significant level of maturity. We have been working with Rosatom for years in another project, Sinop. South Korea also wants to reflect its experiences related to this issue to our country. We are still in talks with them. We aim to finalize these in the coming months and to start actual work in the field on this issue.”
Minister Bayraktar also said that cooperation with the USA and England on small modular reactors is being evaluated.
Bayraktar also mentioned Turkiye’s goal of being carbon neutral in 2053, “We have a target of a Turkiye that is a net exporter of resources and technology.”
Source: AA / Prepared by Irem Yildiz