Energy in Turkey

Energy consumption per person in Turkey is similar to the world average, and over 85 per cent is from fossil fuels. From 1990 to 2017 annual primary energy supply tripled, but then remained constant to 2019. In 2019, Turkey's primary energy supply included around 30 per cent oil, 30 per cent coal, and 25 per cent gas. These fossil fuels contribute to Turkey's air pollution and its above average greenhouse gas emissions. Turkey mines its own lignite (brown coal) but imports three-quarters of its energy, including half the coal and almost all the oil and gas it requires, and its energy policy prioritises reducing imports.

The OECD has criticised the lack of carbon pricing, fossil fuel subsidies and the country's under-utilized wind and solar potential. The country's electricity supplies 20% of its energy and is generated mainly from coal, gas and hydroelectricity; with a small but growing amount from wind, solar and geothermal. However, Black Sea gas is forecast to meet all residential demand from the late 2020s. A nuclear power plant is also under construction, and one half of installed power capacity is renewable energy. Despite this, from 1990 to 2019, carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from fuel combustion rose from 130 megatonnes (Mt) to 360 Mt. In 2023 energy consumption was forecast to increase almost 40% in the following 12 years.

Energy policy is to secure national energy supply and reduce fossil fuel imports, which accounted for over 20% of the cost of Turkey's imports in 2019, and 75 per cent of the current account deficit. This also includes using energy efficiently. However, as of 2019^[update], little research has been done on the policies Turkey uses to reduce energy poverty, which also include some subsidies for home heating and electricity use. Turkey's energy policies plan to give "due consideration to environmental concerns all along the energy chain", "within the context of sustainable development." These plans have been criticised for being published over a year after work mentioned in it had started, not sufficiently involving the private sector, and for being inconsistent with Turkey's climate policy. For example in 2024 a minister said that by Turkey’s net zero year of 2053 half of primary energy would be from renewables and 30% from nuclear, but did not explain how the remaining 20% could be decarbonized.

The Energy Market Regulatory Authority was created in 2001.

Turkey meets a quarter of its energy demand from national resources. The Centre for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies (EDAM), a think tank, says that in the 2010s, fossil fuel imports were probably the largest structural vulnerability of the country's economy: they cost $41 billion in 2019 representing about a fifth of Turkey's total import bill, and were a large part of the 2018 current account deficit and the country's debt problems. Although the country imports 99% of its natural gas and 93% of the petroleum it uses, in the early 2020s fossil gas supply was diversified to reduce dependence on Russia.

To secure energy supply, the government built new gas pipelines, and regasification plants. For example, gas supplies from Azerbaijan surpassed those from Russia in 2020. There is a large surplus of electricity generation capacity, however the government aims at meeting the forecast increase in demand for electricity in Turkey by building its first nuclear power plant and more solar, wind, hydro and coal-fired power plants. The International Climate Initiative says that, as an oil importer, Turkey can increase security of supply by increasing the proportion of renewable electricity it produces. The International Energy Agency has suggested a carbon market, and EDAM says that in the long term, a carbon tax would reduce import dependency by speeding development of national solar and wind energy.

Because the Turkish government is very centralised, its energy policy is national. Lack of transmission capacity was one cause of the nationwide blackout in 2015, therefore policy includes improving electricity transmission. As well as natural gas storage and regasification plants to convert imported liquid natural gas (LNG) to natural gas, the government supports pumped-storage hydroelectricity for long term energy storage.

In 2020, renewables generated 40% of Turkey's electricity, which reduced gas import costs: but, being mainly hydroelectricity, the amount that can be produced is vulnerable to drought. According to Hülya Saygılı, an economist at Turkey's central bank, although imports of solar and wind power components accounted for 12% of import costs in 2017, in EU countries this is largely due to one-time setup costs. She said that compared with Italy and Greece, Turkey has not invested enough in solar and wind power.