Talk:Electricity sector in Turkey

Pie chart
Text should be larger - hope to get round to it soon.Chidgk1 (talk) 17:07, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

new source
https://www.argusmedia.com/en/news/2132178-lira-weakness-weighs-on-turkish-coal-generation-margins

hydro controls price?
https://www.argusmedia.com/en/blog/2020/august/26/coal-imports-help-turkish-economy-in-1h20

if so why dont they turn off all the dams at 6 a.m. when price lowest? some ecological reason?

new reports
https://www.shura.org.tr/sector_coupling_for_grid_integration_of_wind_and_solar/

https://www.shura.org.tr/socioeconomic_impact_of_the_power_system_transition_in_turkey/

Should extracts be used for the generation subsections?
or anyone. I am pondering making the generation subsections extracts from the leads of their detailed articles. The only source which does not have a detailed article at the moment is gas but with the recent Black Sea discovery I am thinking of starting an article Natural gas in Turkey analogous to Natural gas in the United States - so in that case the extract would be of a section rather than the lead. One advantage of using extracts would be to avoid duplicating text which would likely need updating at least annually. Can you see any disadvantages which would outweigh the advantages? Chidgk1 (talk) 11:13, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
 * My suggestion is to draft the summary content for each generation sector in the main article so that it describes the most significant characteristics of that sector (probably as seen from an international perspective), but with content selected so that it will not require regular updating, and with few statistics. Ideally, all such statistics should be supported with citations - ie not relying on the reader to find the information in the subordinate article and then find the citation.Marshelec (talk) 18:27, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Technology mistakes or omissions?
or anyone. Can you see anything which is wrong or missing about the technology? I am thinking particularly of the "transmission" and "distribution" subsections. Chidgk1 (talk) 11:19, 8 November 2021 (UTC)
 * I have expanded the content about Distribution. More could be usefully added, but it is difficult to find good sources. Ideally, I would like to find a recently published overall review of the entire distribution sector. Perhaps ERMA has published something along these lines? I will see what I can discover. I will move on to Transmission after that, but suspect that shortage of suitable sources could again be a constraint.Marshelec (talk) 01:16, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks very much - while remaining "summary style" what are the most important things you think are missing from the "distribution" section? Chidgk1 (talk) 13:48, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Distribution is easy to overlook compared with generation and transmission, but it makes a significant contribution to delivered cost of energy, and has a major influence on service quality for the average consumer. It is worthwhile to expand the content in this section if suitable references can be found (although I suspect references may be hard to find). Here are a few ideas:
 * What % of delivered energy cost is represented by distribution ? See NZ data here (I must include this reference in the NZ article):
 * What service quality information is published ? (In NZ there is mandatory disclosure of a wide range of performance metrics)
 * Is there any published benchmarking of service quality performance ?
 * What sanctions are there for poor performance by distributors ?
 * What incentives are in place to reduce technical and non-technical losses ?
 * Who owns the meters at the consumer premises, and who manages metering data ?
 * Is there any distribution industry association that represents the sector ? If so, does it publish anything useful (this would typically be advocacy and would have to be treated with care, but still might be interesting).
 * Has there been significant news coverage of incidents or problems in electricity distribution that have national significance ?
 * I also propose to relocate content about wiring and plugs from the Retailing section, into a "Low voltage supply" sub-section of Distribution.Marshelec (talk) 21:15, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

New reports
https://www.pwc.com.tr/overview-of-the-turkish-electricity-market

https://ipc.sabanciuniv.edu/Content/Images/CKeditorImages/20211103-20111678.pdf

History of the unbundling of the electricity sector
I have created an illustration that may be useful in the History section of this article. It still needs tidying up, and I need to work out how to crop the background. See: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Unbundling_of_the_electricity_sector_in_Turkey.svg  Comments please. Marshelec (talk) 04:27, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Fixed format problems and cropped. Comments welcome. Marshelec (talk) 04:38, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Nice diagram. Would it be too difficult to add that EÜAŞ took over TETAŞ in 2018 (see diag page 8 of report linked above)? Perhaps it could be done by showing the ones that no longer exist in a much lighter shade? Chidgk1 (talk) 19:37, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I have amended to make it closer to the one in the source you referenced, and removed the title, given that there will be a caption when it is included in an article. If you think this is adequate, I will draft a paragraph of narrative to go in the History section alongside the diagram. It is easy to change, so feel free to make any suggestions.  This has been a useful exercise for me in learning more about Inkscape. I am working on how to get the special characters that are really needed here.  Which is the correct unicode for the capital U ?  See this List of Unicode characters. Can you confirm please ? Marshelec (talk) 07:18, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
 * U is 85 and %C3%9C is 220 Chidgk1 (talk) 13:32, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I think the latest version now has the required special characters, but please check. It was good to learn how to do this. :)  I will now draft some brief content to accompany this illustration in the History section.  However, feedback on the diagram is still welcome.  When TEIAŞ is privatised, I could add another row to the diagram.Marshelec (talk) 20:45, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Resilience section
(below suggestions by Marshelec copied from User_talk:Marshelec so others can easily comment if they wish

begin comment--

The topic of resilience in electricity systems is multi-faceted, and is a challenge to describe briefly in an encyclopaedia. It is also likely to be difficult to find good sources to cite. Looking at the present content of this section, I think it would probably be best to delete it. I have added my comments in italics into a copy of the text in the Resilience section as it stands.

Earthquakes in Turkey are common and sometimes cut transmission lines and destroy substations.[148] After purchasing a property in an urban area earthquake insurance is compulsory before the electricity and other utilities are connected.[149] This is really about resilience of property owners, not the electricity sector. Because many of the trapped people rescued from rubble are located via their phones household earthquake preparedness includes keeping phones well charged and keeping plenty of batteries in the house.[150] This again is about civil defence preparedness, not the electricity sector.

In case of emergencies, distribution grids can be remotely controlled by SCADA.[151] ''Distribution grids are routinely controlled via SCADA. The source actually describes a mobile "command centre" that can be taken into an area following major disruption, to assist with recovery and restoration. It seems that it is intended to cover for the total loss of a major SCADA control centre. New Zealand has two national control centres in different locations, each of which can almost instantly take control of the entire grid if the other has to be evacuated or fails. Real resilience goes far beyond control centres. System resilience is designed in to the netwrok and its equipment. It includes appropriate seismic withstand (and other appropriate limit-state design criteria and protections), design levels of backup/redundancy, duplication, diverse comms routes, timely access to skilled people, equipment, spares, machinery.'' The installation of more local solar power with batteries and microgrids in vulnerable places might help vital buildings such as hospitals retain power after a natural disaster such as earthquake or flood. Academics suggest that cost–benefit analysis of such emergency power systems should take into account any benefits of resilience and also the cost of installing an islandable system.[152][153]I don't think this article needs to cover the topic of emergency power supplies.

The nationwide blackout in 2015 did not greatly affect Van Province as it was supplied from Iran,[154] the EU interconnection helped restore power,[155] and more integration with other countries would increase resilience.[156] This sentence could be relocated into the Transmission section.

end comment---


 * Thanks for those very useful comments. I have made some changes but am reluctant to delete the section altogether. Having the section heading there might encourage others to add more info in future - for example if an Istanbul earthquake plan was to include more info on electricity Chidgk1 (talk) 09:22, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree that Resilience is a valid topic for articles about the electricity sectors of countries. However, it is not clear that there are currently sufficient sources about the resilience of the electricity sector in Turkey to meet quality expectations for this article at the GA level.  To provide a bit more background, here is a link to recent substantive paper from the leading international learned society IET, setting out the current state of thinking about Resilience in power systems.   You will see from this paper that the topic is very broad, and that there are still differences in definitions and understandings in different international jurisdictions.  Here is an interesting quote from section 5.2 of the document:
 * "There is no agreed standard or design criteria that utilities and government should work together to enhance power systems resilience during catastrophic outages. Likewise, there is no common agreement on the level of resilience to lessen the impact of large-scale outages. Without consistent design standards, it is difficult for utility operators to build a system with a realistic and sensible level of resilience. Therefore, the design basis from the government is necessary that can provide the framework needed for investments to meet enhanced design criteria and preparedness standards. It should provide economic justification for hardening investments to receive regulatory approval and should serve as a basis to develop appropriate incentives."


 * As with Turkey, in New Zealand one important aspect of electricity system resilience is seismic withstand. There is a common AS/NZ standard AS/NZS 1170.0:2002 Structural design actions. This standard is focussed on structures, but it has been applied to electricity network assets. It sets out criteria for assessing the “importance level” of an asset, based (broadly) on consequences of failure, and the required role following a disaster.  So a major regional hospital would be Importance level 4, but smaller local medical facility might be Importance level 2.  The standard sets different performance expectations based on the Importance level, to guide the structural designer. For Importance level 4 (this would be assigned to major grid substations), there should be no significant loss of operational capability for events up to a 500 year return period severity, prompt recovery and restoration of service for events with a 1000 year return period severity, and collapse limit (ie total destructive failure) should be at events with a 2500 year return period or beyond.


 * If good sources specifically relevant to resilience of Turkey’s electricity sector are available, then the Resilience section can be retained. Otherwise, I suggest it is best left out at this stage.  I remain of the view that emergency power systems that individual enterprises may choose to put in place to protect critical loads are probably out of scope for this article, unless perhaps there is some national standard or mandate requiring these to be provided for certain kinds of end-use applications, as a part of wider public policy to help ensure community resilience..Marshelec (talk) 22:27, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

and anyone else - I very much doubt there are better sources on resilience here - do you have an opinion? should the section be deleted? if so should the text be moved elsewhere or deleted? Chidgk1 (talk) 10:56, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Why does imported coal power stay constant?
Does anyone understand why the light grey band for "imported coal" at https://ytbsbilgi.teias.gov.tr/ytbsbilgi/frm_istatistikler.jsf stays almost constant?

Because we can see from https://seffaflik.epias.com.tr/transparency/piyasalar/gop/ptf.xhtml that the price is usually less in the small hours of the morning so why don't they ramp down around midnight and back up again around 6 a.m.? Several big plants were built in the 2010s and so don't receive capacity payments. And presumably being new they would be capable of ramping. For example if we look at Cenal at https://seffaflik.epias.com.tr/transparency/uretim/gerceklesen-uretim/gercek-zamanli-uretim.xhtml it has run constantly so far this month.

I understand gas is expensive now but if we look back to a day in 2020 it is still flat.

Anyone any idea why?

Chidgk1 (talk) 17:09, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Possible new topics
Here are some thoughts about new topics that could possibly be included in the article, if suitable sources are available:

Quality of service
Are there any regularly published reports about quality of service (eg using measures such as SAIDI and SAIFI), or any other customer service indicators ? Regulators may set mandatory disclosure requirements for distribution businesses to make this information public. Many sources cover electricity generation supply security, but it would add to the article if some information about quality of supply at the distribution level is available.
 * Aha I had never heard of those before so thanks for giving me useful search terms. One appears in a 2019 report but not in the 2020 report - perhaps some keen engineer was ticked off by a manager after the report was published and told not to embarrass TEDAŞ again! Anyway I will include the Turkish term in the article so future editors can search again. Chidgk1 (talk) 06:35, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Remote area power supplies
Turkey is a large country and presumably has some areas that are sparsely populated and a great distance from the main electricity networks. In some countries, stand-alone power systems are used in these situations, either because the remote area has never been connected to the grid, or alternatively, that the costs of renewal of very long distribution infrastructure serving a remote region are so great that stand-alone power systems are an economical alternative (and may possibly also bring reliability benefits). Are there any sources about notable instances (or controversies) concerning remote areas and the provision of stand-alone power systems in Turkey? Marshelec (talk) 00:18, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Good question. The answer is no as far as I know. I know from experience that at least one village is disconnected in winter in case lines are brought down by winter weather, because in the past villagers used to move with their animals to lower pasture in winter. But I doubt this is widespread nowadays (and I don't have a source) so I don't think worth mentioning. It is quite surprising how the grid gets to even very remote areas. Not sure why there was not more local small hydro in the early 20th century (perhaps due to the central govt wanting to keep central control and not allow either physical or political local power), but I suppose the grid was everywhere before wind and solar microgrids became viable. Chidgk1 (talk) 06:17, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Drivers of increasing price of delivered electricity
I note the following comment in a (possibly self-serving) news release by the association of electricity distributors: "In the past year, natural gas prices have increased up to 10 times, and imported coal prices have increased up to five times on a foreign currency basis." (HA/VK)" . If this claim is supportable with other sources, it is highly material to this article and worth including, because it speaks directly to the urgent need for Turkey to become more self-sufficient in generation and less dependent upon imported fuel. It is also relevant to the increasing competitiveness of generation from wind and solar.  On the other hand, it may have the less desirable effect of further increasing the government support for lignite fueled generation.Marshelec (talk) 03:50, 16 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Not certain but I suspect they are comparing with the incredibly low fuel prices when demand was hit by covid. The bit about imported coal prices sounds like misleading information because however low the imported coal price used to be the govt added taxes to bring it up to a floor price - so no way is it 5 times the floor price. Still I will think about adding a sentence or 2 about price volatility. Because if I understand right any solar and wind built this year and in future are fixed price in local currency to the electricity buyers for at least 10 years. Also I need to check whether hybrid solar/battery and wind/battery are also fixed in lira. Whereas gas and imported coal prices will presumably continue to fluctuate. And nuclear being fixed in USD will fluctuate in lira.


 * I guess the experts don't know what will happen with the lignite power price in the future. I suppose it will be hard for EU bureaucrats to work out the details of the carbon border tax. Perhaps they will just tax electricity imports by Turkey's average carbon emissions. Or perhaps (for example) Bulgarian Energy Holding would do some bilateral deal to buy only renewable power from Turkey once they close their own coal power plants. Chidgk1 (talk) 07:40, 16 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Ah interesting - I just read that Bulgarian peak demand is in winter https://bnr.bg/en/post/101599441/bulgaria-will-propose-that-coal-fired-power-stations-function-at-times-of-highest-consumption-in-winter-environment-minister?page_1_4=1 whereas ours is in summer. Surely some good trading opportunities to sell our wind power and buy their nuclear Chidgk1 (talk) 07:57, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

Anyone know what the AOF price means?
F means "fiyat" (price) so A and O must be Turkish words

https://www.epias.com.tr/en/spot-electricity-market Chidgk1 (talk) 06:49, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
 * The price in the link you've sent above matches with the prices here, so I guess it's GİP Ağırlıklı Ortalama Fiyat. Have no idea what that means though. xD ~Styyx Talk ? 15:47, 22 March 2022 (UTC)


 * Excellent that was the clue I needed to complete footnote b with this cite

Renewables share?
Hello - where did you get that percentage from please? Chidgk1 (talk) 16:54, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

New reports
https://ember-climate.org/insights/research/turkiye-electricity-review-2023/

https://www.pwc.com.tr/tr/sektorler/enerji/overview-of-turkish-electricity-market-2023.pdf

Also when updating check shura for any new english reports