| Abstract |
Turkey is located on the Alpine-Himalayan orogenic belt, which has high geothermal potential. The first geothermal research and investigations in Turkey were started by MTA in the 1960s. From this time, 186 geothermal fields have been discovered by MTA, where 95% of them are low-medium enthalpy fields, which are suitable mostly for direct-use applications. Around 1500 hot and mineralised natural springs and wells exist in Turkey. With the existing geothermal wells and spring discharge water, the proven geothermal capacity calculated by MTA is totally 4078 MWt (exhaust temperature is assumed to be 35°C). The geothermal potential is estimated as 31,500 MWt (5,000,000 residences equivalence). This figure means also that 30% of the total residences in Turkey could be heated by geothermal energy. Turkey is the 7th richest country in the world in geothermal potential. Most of the development has been achieved in geothermal direct-use applications by 201,000 residences equivalence geothermal heating (1494 MWt) including district heating, thermal facilities and 2,300,000 m2 geothermal greenhouse heating. A total of 260 spas in Turkey are used for balneological purposes (552 MWt). By summing up all these geothermal utilisations in Turkey, the installed capacity is 2084 MWt for direct-use (including heat pump applications totally 38 MWt) and 81.61 MWe for power production in Turkey, where a liquid carbon dioxide and dry ice production factory is integrated to this power plant. About 7% of our total geothermal potential has been utilized so far. 550 MWe power production and 4000 MWt space heating is targeted for the year 2015. With the huge thermal tourism capacity potential of Turkey, the target is to increase the numbers of local curists (tourists in thermalism) to 15 million people and of foreign curists to 250,000 by the year 2015. Geothermal greenhouse heating has gained speed especially in the last 3 years in Turkey. The geothermal law has been released in June 2007 which contributed to the realization of privatization of Kizildere geothermal power plant and tendering of six geothermal fields by MTA suitable for electricity generation in October 2008. |