BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 21. Turkey’s gas demand is projected to decrease in 2022 after a sharp rise in 2021, Gulmira Rzayeva, Senior Visiting Research Fellow at Oxford Institute for Energy Studies said, Trend reports via the Institute.
Turkey’s gas consumption in 2021 showed an unprecedented demand - an all-time high of 60billion cubic meters from 48 billion cubic meters in 2020, exceeding its previous record in 2017 when demand surged to 53 billion cubic meters, the expert said.
Taking into regard that Turkey could not substitute gas with hydropower in 2021 due to an extremely dry season, and coal was also excluded due to high prices, the gas demand increased, she noted.
“Natural gas plants are the most flexible type of electricity production, which is able to compensate for the low costs of hydropower, coal and renewable energy sources. Switching largely depends on the hydraulic model. According to our estimates, in the wet year of 2022, hydropower is expected to generate 30 billion kWh, which will be converted into 6 billion cubic meters when switching from natural gas,” Rzayeva said.
Also, Turkey plans to add another 1,000 MWh of solar energy and installed wind farms with a record capacity of 1,750 MWh substituting natural gas in electricity production where possible, the expert added.
Thus, Turkey’s gas demand in 2022 is projected to decrease by 10 percent, compared to 2021, to around 54-55 billion cubic meters, she concluded.
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