As part of the current GeoFund/ World Bank Geothermal Workshop in Istanbul, Turkey, there have been good news to geothermal developers given by the Turkish government.

As a start, Turkey “plans to launch around 120 investment projects for energy by 2020 with the major part of these to be constituted to the geothermal energy projects, Hilmi Guler, the Turkish Energy Minister said.”

He further talked about the transformation about the Turkish electricity market “by a new system, to be launched on March 16, under which the government will purchase electricity from private producers through bilateral contracts. The new system, which will be launched with a tender on March 16, will allow electricity producers to make contracts for longer terms and help boost investments.

The minister said investors would be able to plan as far as four years ahead and make investments accordingly. He added that this would also provide a secure market. He explained that with the new system, their intention was to create competition in the market, noting that the prices shaped by this competition would benefit consumers. “When there is competition, everybody will arm wrestle. Of course, our people, industrialists, citizens with low incomes and exporters, will benefit from this,” he stressed.”
“An official from the World Bank GeoFund said with the right market conditions Turkey is expected to be the largest GeoFund country in the workshop which was organized under the cooperation of the World Bank Partnership International, an agency providing regulatory, institutional, technical and financial advice to clients on infrastructure investment projects.

“Turkey has tremendous resources in terms of geothermal energy. With the right market conditions, Turkey would be the largest GeoFund country in. We believe that Turkey would be the model geothermal country in its region,” Helmut Schreiber said in his speech.

Sources: Today’s Zaman, Hurriyet Daily News

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