مصرف انرژی و رشد اقتصادی در ترکیه در دو دهه گذشته

The Turkish economy has undergone a transformation from agricultural to industrial, enhanced by rapid urbanization, especially after 1982. Turkey's gross national production has grown at an average annual rate of 5% since 1983, ranking it at the top of the OECD countries, although the growth pattern has been uneven. Economic growth in recent years has been associated with the privatization of public enterprises. Turkey's energy demand has risen rapidly as a result of social and economic development. The country's energy consumption has grown considerably since the beginning of the 1980s. The Turkish government encourages foreign and Turkish private sector investors to implement the energy projects and is currently working on a new investment model for the construction of new generation plants to create the additional capacity needed. The Turkish energy sector, with its current size of 30 billion US dollars and projected size of 55 billion US dollars by 2015, as well as the fundamental restructuring process it has been going through since 2001, attracts both local and foreign investors. The sector needs an investment amount of approximately 130 billion US dollars by 2020. The aim of the present paper is to investigate the increasing of Turkish energy demand with the growth of the economy and utilization of domestic energy sources and the case of investments and imports in Turkey during the past two decades.

In the developing countries, energy consumption has risen rapidly as a result of economical growth in recent years. With its emerging and rapidly growing economy and with a population of 73 million people, Turkey has today become the world's 17th largest economy. Turkey's energy demand has risen rapidly as a result of social and economic development. Turkey's national energy policies are designed to provide the required energy on a timely, reliable, cost-effective, environment-friendly and high-quality basis so as to serve as the driving force of development and social progress (Tunç et al., 2006). The government focused its effort on improvement in domestic production by utilizing public, private and foreign utilities and increasing efficiency by rehabilitation and acceleration of existing construction programs to initiate new investments (Tütünlü et al., 1998). The country's energy strategy is aimed at satisfying demand without preventing economic growth. In order to meet this strategy, energy management, national utilization and energy conservation were also adopted as other elements of the national energy policy along with enhanced recovery of domestic sources (Hepbasli and Ozgener, 2004a).

Turkey's energy demand has risen rapidly as a result of social and economic development. Total primary energy production meets only 27% of the total primary energy demand. The country's energy strategy is aimed at satisfying demand without preventing economic growth. Turkey aims at full utilization of the indigenous hard coal and lignite reserves, hydro and other renewable resources such as wind and solar energy to meet the demand growth in a sustainable manner. Turkey's renewable energy resources are the most important alternatives to fossil resources for the country's energy demand. Turkey has great potential for developing geothermal energy resources, but its contribution to country's energy demand is insignificant. Considering the development of wind energy in the country, it may be concluded that the number of the wind power plant installations will considerably increase in the future. Domestic production is planned to be nearly doubled by 2010, mainly in coal (lignite) which, at present, accounts for almost half of the total energy production. Hydropower should also increase two-fold over the same period.