Interview with Ali Kindap – Chairman of JED, Turkiye
Ali Kindap, President of the Geothermal Energy Association (JED) of Turkiye (source: JED)
In this interview with JED President Ali Kindap, he discusses the geothermal potential of Turkiye for direct-use applications, turnkey technologies, and the role of incentives in development.
In an interview with AA, President of the Turkish Geothermal Energy Association (JED) Ali Kindap touched upon the different usage areas of geothermal energy in Turkiye. He emphasized that apart from the 1686 megawatt power plant installed power, Turkiye also has 520,000 MW of direct use applications such as residential and greenhouse heating and tourism.
Kindap stated that the amount of potential discovered is 62,000 megawatts of heat (MWt) and said, “This is a great potential that can correspond to a natural gas consumption of more than 60 billion cubic meters. This is the energy that can easily meet the annual amount of gas Turkiye uses today.”
He stated that Turkish investors have investments in many different countries such as Kenya, Indonesia, Croatia and other Balkan countries. “Geothermal energy is the only energy branch to which we export our experience and knowledge. Many of our companies are currently doing business in these countries, both in terms of exploration activities and drilling and power plant investments.”
“Our business model is a very different and sought-after business model compared to other countries in the world because we do turnkey projects in geothermal. In fact, there is no such concept as turnkey in underground mining works such as oil, gas and geothermal because working underground requires expertise in many multi-disciplinary fields.
“The Turkish private sector brought the turnkey concept in geothermal to this sector. We have gained the ability to do everything ourselves, from exploration to drilling and even operation. For this reason, countries that are candidates for development in geothermal love this feature of us.”
Kindap also mentioned that the Renewable Energy Resources Support Mechanism (YEKDEM) implementation is one of the best incentive systems in Turkey, that many renewable energy projects are implemented by this means, and that the second YEKDEM mechanism implemented will be valid from the second half of 2021 until 2025.
“Many conditions have changed in the current mechanism compared to the previous YEKDEM period. The significant drop in prices negatively affected the investment environment and eliminated investment opportunities. Under current conditions, our industry has the knowledge, technology and capital structure to activate an additional installed power of 200-300 megawatts every year. On the other hand, in the new YEKDEM period, our investments stopped completely. However, with reasonable prices and good incentive mechanisms, 62,000 MW of heat have been discovered and we can immediately and quickly commission the 3,500 MW suitable for power plant investments.
“It is obvious that both the law and legislation side and the new tariffs do not meet the needs of the industry. Our discussions on this issue continue with the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources. We look forward to the new tariff being announced. I hope that with this tariff that will be prepared or announced in the coming months, the geothermal energy sector will continue on its way from where it left off before it gets colder.” He stated that these developments in the last two years were insufficient.
Source: AA via our Turkish language platform JeotermalHaberler
