Based on the outcomes from a face-to-face survey of 2,422 residents from urban Turkey (Ertör Akyazi, et al., 2012), almost two-thirds of respondents support the investment of wind power plants in the city where they are living. Only a small minority opposes the further investment to wind power. Nevertheless, there has been local resistance to wind farms in several places, which has often been associated with environment-related problems of renewables – such as noise, visual pollution, and potential harm to migrating birds, as mentioned in the previous subchapter. In such cases, resistance to specific wind farm projects has often been understood in terms of “not-in-my-backyard” attitudes (Ertör Akyazi, et al., 2012). However, recent studies demonstrate that there is not enough relevant empirical evidence to explain these attitudes. Therefore, it is not possible to attribute the oppositions to a single reason.
Another survey from (Ediger, et al., 2016) justifies the above highlighted survey outcomes. 57.3% of 1,204 respondents support the construction of wind power plants in the area they are living. Furthermore, 39.5% of respondents think renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, geothermal must be used for the electricity generation, despite the fact that energy transition from fossil fuels to renewable sources will be a
more expensive option. The social acceptance of wind energy as well as renewable energy in general, increased in 2017 compared to 2016. Figure 17 shows the respondents’ opinions, regarding which type of energy will be the most important in the world and in Turkey. Figure 17. Which type of energy will be the most important one in the world and in Turkey in the future? In the world In Turkey Data source: (Ediger, et al., 2016). 5.2.4. Results and Outcomes There are some obstacles to operating wind power plants in Turkey: I. The feed-in tariff had been limited to the first ten years of operation. Therefore, Turkey must put in place new feed-in tariffs and incentives. Currently, wind power plants in Turkey benefit from state incentives. For instance, if the 55% of the materials used for plant construction is local, the state increases purchase guarantee by 30%, i.e. from 10 years to 13 years. Nevertheless, the new legislative revision is still not sufficient to encourage the utilisation and installation of new power plants.
II. General Electric, one of the world's leading energy companies, has been in the process of building local wind turbines in Turkey. Doğa Derneği, a non- governmental organisation active in Turkey, points out to the potential threat of building wind farms and photovoltaic facilities in areas inhabited by Eastern Imperial Eagles. The remaining 35 breeding pairs of Imperial Eagles are
40% 22% 7% 7% 7% 7% 1% 3%2%
Solar Natural gas Nuclear
Wind No answer Petroleum
Hydro Geothermal Bor
34% 14% 4% 9% 7% 6% 2% 3% 21%
Solar Natural gas Nuclear
Wind No answer Petroleum
documented in the Thrace region, and four pairs inhabit Istanbul where the rising wind turbines can make the habitat unsuitable for breeding, hunting, and dispersal (Doga Dernegi 2014).
III. Wind-generated power, similar to solar or hydropower, is variable in nature. By wind-generated power resources, the amount of electricity produced at any given point in time, by a given plant, will depend on wind speeds, air density and turbine characteristics. To avoid voltage fluctuations, some necessary measures associated with the grid circuit connection must be determined. Accordingly, wind power, which will be connected to the network, cannot exceed 5% of short- circuit power of the network. In Turkey, there is an assumed constant circuit angle rate, as a consequence of technical calculations which is valid for the whole country. Nevertheless, in practice, this rate may vary from region to region. It is, therefore, significant to review the connection criteria and rate of the power plants to actualise more wind energy projects.
IV. Constrained or lack of transmission capacity is one of the significant barriers to the development of wind power plants in Turkey, since the most favourable areas for wind power are typically located far from load centres. The transmission lines to those specific areas would have to be planned to deliver power from all potential wind power plants to achieve the goal of installing 20,000 MW of wind power plants by 2023. This requires substantial upfront investment in transmission capacity, which private project developers would be reluctant to finance, placing the burden on public financing.
Turkey has a significant potential for wind power development with its coastal length of 7,200km and high average annual wind velocities, creating the potential for the efficient utilisation of the Mediterranean shores, Aegean Sea coast areas and northern and western parts of the Marmara Sea coast (Arioglu Akan, et al., 2015). Concerning the environmental impacts of wind power plants, the global warming potential of wind power is 88% lower than for geothermal electricity and 11% lower than large hydropower.
To reach its 2023 target of 20,000 MW wind power plants, a total installed capacity of nearly 16,000 MW or (2,000 MW annually) wind power must be constructed and integrated to the grid between 2015-2023. According to the International Renewable Energy Agency’s 2015 report on ‘renewable power generation costs’, the capital investment for wind energy turbines varied from US$1,127/kwh to
US$1,376/kwh in 2014, in developed countries. Ultimately, the calculations show us, in order to fulfil its energy goals, Turkey must spend between $18.0 billion and $22.70 billion in the next eight years for the construction of wind power plants (IRENA, 2015). In addition to that, the wind turbines have a limited lifetime, varying between 20 and 25 years. 5.3. Hydroelectrical Power Water and energy are intrinsically interrelated and connected: We need energy to extract, transport and distribute clean and fresh water and we need water to produce clean energy. This kind of relationship between water and energy was labelled “water- energy nexus” in 1994 by Peter H. Gleick, an American scientist working on environmental issues. Due to the rising concerns regarding the sustainable use of fresh water sources, Gleick historically drew the attention of scholars, to the physical and environmental constraints in humankind’s use of hydro sources, which in the present day are beginning to manifest (Gleick, 1994 S. 267). The conceptualisations of the water- energy nexus are limited by understandings of resource or commodity orientations, scarcity or efficiency driven views and resource supply-demand relations in technical terms (Eren, 2018 S. 22). In addition to its technical peculiarities, the water-energy nexus is inherently under the influence of social, political and economic powers.
Hydropower is considered as a clean, renewable energy source, as it uses the Earth's water cycle to generate electricity. Around one third of the solar radiation reaching the Earth is responsible for the running of hydrologic cycle (Ozis, et al., 2008). Therefore, the cycle is a never-ending system, so long as the Sun exists. The manipulation of water sources by human beings dates back to dawn of civilisation - even outside the realm of energy generation purposes - as the Mesopotamians built dams, irrigation canals and town water supply systems at least 8,000 years ago, from 3,000 BC in Jordan (Erdogdu, 2011 S. 690). The vertical water wheel was created in the Middle East during the first century of BC identified by the earliest textual reference by Greek geographer Strabo (Jones, 1924), describing a water mill in the new palace of Mithridatus VII Eupator, King of Pontus at Cabeira (Niksar, north of Turkey) (Viollet, 2017 S. 571). Romans knew about waterwheels, nevertheless, did not extensively use them until the fourteenth century. The initial purposes were graining wheat into flour, sawing wood, powering textile mills and later operating manufacturing plants (Gulliver, et al., 1991 S. 1.2). At the end of the Middle Ages and at the eve of the Industrial
Revolution, the water wheels were the support to many economical pre-industrial activities such as fulling paper mills, treading cane for sugar processing, moving bellows and water hammers for metallurgy (forges) (Viollet, 2017 S. 570). During the nineteenth century, hydropower became, for the first time, a source for electricity generation. Although some forms of hydroelectric turbine development date back to 1750, Benoit Fourneyron, a French engineer, is credited with his contributions to the development of the first modern turbine in 1833 (Gulliver, et al., 1991 S. 1.2).
Today, the most significant share of new hydropower is held by China, which accounts for around one-half of the world hydropower capacity. Other countries with substantial additions in 2015 were Brazil, Turkey, India, Vietnam, Malaysia, Canada and Colombia. In Turkey, hydropower is the most developed renewable energy source among the installed renewable energies. This is predominantly due to the fact that the country has the geographical advantage of suitable water resources, located in seven regions. Additionally, Turkey has historically been host to several different civilisations and these civilisations were engaged in various hydro-works. With respect to this background, next sub-chapter aims to analyse the historical development of water works, the current status of electricity generation from hydro resources, as well as the environmental and societal impacts of hydropower plants in Turkey.