نقش نیروی برق آبی و سهم نیروگاه های آبی کوچک برای توسعه پایدار در ترکیه

Turkey is a rapidly growing country regarding its economy and population and therefore has a large and continuously increasing energy demand. Turkey mostly meets its energy demand from imported fossil sources. However apart from petroleum and natural gas, Turkey has almost all kinds of energy resources and hence it would not need to meet its energy demand through import. In addition, Turkey has very large potential of hydraulic energy but to date only one-third of this significant economical potential could be used. This ratio seems insufficient when compared with that of European countries. In this paper the role of hydroelectric power, its potential and its present status are investigated in detail for Turkey. Especially the small scale hydropower plant is emphasized as Turkey's renewable energy source. Furthermore the water resources of Turkey are examined.

Turkey’s geographical coordinates are 36°–42° north latitude and 26°–45° east longitude. It has a total area of 814,578 km2[1] and [2]. Turkey’s geographical location makes it a natural bridge between the energy-rich Middle East and Central Asian regions. Energy plays a vital role in the socio-economic development and in raising the standard of living. Turkey is a rapidly growing country where both its population and economy are expanding each year, resulting in a corresponding increase in its energy demand. This increasing demand has to be met to keep a sustainable development in the economy and to raise the living conditions of the people. Although Turkey has many energy sources, it is a big energy importer. Turkey has a lot of potential to supply its own energy, which could be harnessed in order to avoid this energy dependency. Additionally, Turkey is a country with an abundance of renewable energy sources and can essentially provide all energy requirements from its own indigenous energy sources [1]. The main indigenous energy resources of Turkey are lignite, hydro and biomass. Table 1 shows Turkey’s present and future energy consumption (taken from Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources of Turkey) with respect to various resources [3].Turkey’s annual electricity demand in 2010, 2015 and 2020 is predicted to go up to 270 TWh, 410 TWh and 571 TWh, respectively [1] and [4]. It can be noticed from Table 1 that in order to meet the continuously increasing annual electricity demand of next 10 years, the indigenous renewable energy resources should be employed more instead of the non–abundant fossil sources to mitigate the energy dependence on foreign countries. This gives a strong motivation to explore the potential of hydropower as a renewable energy source, which has not been utilized sufficiently so far. It should be seriously considered as a major contributor to meet significant portion of all energy demand from now on. Turkey has a total hydropower potential of 433 TWh that accounts for almost 1.1% of the total hydropower potential of the world and for 13.75% of European hydropower potential. Only 130 TWh of the total hydroelectric potential of Turkey can be used economically. By the commissioning of new hydropower plants, which are under construction, 43% of the economically usable potential of the country would be exploited. At present the hydropower energy is an important energy source for Turkey due to its useful characteristics such as being renewable, clean, and less impactful on the environment, as well as being a cheap and domestic energy source [5]. Hydropower is still the most efficient way to generate electricity. Modern hydro turbines can convert as much as 90% of the available energy into electricity while the efficiency of the best fossil fuel plant is only about 50%. Additionally, hydropower is an outstanding source to generate electricity in all over the world and will seemingly keep on growing especially in the developing countries [6] and [7]. While large dams have become much riskier investment, there still remains much unexploited potential for small hydro projects around the world. In this paper, the role of hydroelectric power, its potential and its present status are investigated in detail for Turkey. Especially the small hydropower plant could be emphasized as a new renewable energy source of Turkey because it assists in increasing the economical usage of hydropower potential of Turkey.

The following concluding remarks may be drawn from this paper: • Hydropower energy is an important energy source for Turkey because it is renewable, clean, and less impactful on the environment. Plus it is a cheap and domestic energy source. • The average exploitable water potential of the country is 110 km3/year. Therefore, hydropower possesses sufficient and suitable characteristics in Turkey to maintain sustainable development. • There are numerous environmental problems associated with large dams. Therefore, SHEPs of less than 10 MW play a key role in many countries for rural electrification. • Turkey’s hydropower potential can meet 33–46% of its electric energy demand in 2020 (571 TWh). By evaluating SHEPs, of which potential can be estimated to be in the order of some tens of TWh/yr, Turkey will provide an important part of its total electric energy demand from its own hydropower resources. • Only 3.3% of economically feasible SHEP potential has been developed so far. If all the remaining SHEP potential of Turkey was completely exploited, it would bring about an amount of about 20 TWh/yr of electricity generation, which means almost 10% of the annual total electricity demand of Turkey. • Only 27% of theoretically economical hydropower potential is currently utilizable. In fact if Turkey could efficiently exploit its remaining hydropower potential having an amount of 90 TWh/yr while its annual energy consumption is almost 190 TWh, Turkey would be able to lessen significantly its energy dependency on foreign countries. • With the contribution of the regulations and laws published after 2001, the private sector developed totally 1064 hydropower projects with a total installed capacity of 6500 MW in Turkey until the first quarter of 2008. These projects mostly include SHEPs. After this law, it is currently estimated that Turkey’s economically feasible hydropower potential will reach 150 TWh/yr