ZEMCH 2015 - International Conference Proceedings | Page 130

Energy Consumption
Energy use in Turkey has been increased significantly over the past 20 years. Figure 3 shows that
the energy consumption in 1980 reach 1.0 quadrillion Btu (quads) and its increase to reach 2.9
quads in 1998. As above mentioned, most of the energy use is for the industrial sector (50%). Some
experts ensure that 22% of the energy consumption in Turkey is lost due to inefficient distribution
and relay systems (EIA 2000).

Figure 3: Energy consumption in Turkey between 1980 and 1998 (EIA 2000)
Sozen et al. (2005) stated that there are few energy sources in Turkey; most of the net energy
consumption (52%) is produced by imports. Coal, oil, natural gas, geothermal and lignite are parts
of the initial energy sources in Turkey. The major source for fuel production in Turkey is the coal.
Recently the oil for energy consumption increased. The oil consumption reached 44% and natural
gas reached 12% in total primary energy source consumption. While, in the primary energy source
production, the ration of the oil is 1% and the natural gas has 13%. This is due to the lake of oil and
natural gas fields in Turkey. The biggest ration is for the lignite. In 21st century, Turkey has insufficiency of energy sources because of the rapid increase of domestic energy demand. Therefore,
the reliance on outside energy supplies has been increased in this time (Sozen et al. 2005).

Energy Consumption and its Social Impact:
As mentioned above that energy consumption will increase the level of GHG and carbon emissions. Energy use is responsible for three quarter of the dangerous CO2 emissions. That means
the air will be more polluted with dangerous particles which will affect the human health and
comfort. Thus, the traditional energy production didn’t give the opportunity for the end user to
participate in the energy production. While, the renewable energy allow for them to sell their
own power to the main grid (PV installed on the roof ) which increase the social acceptance for
the renewables.

Challenges Toward Sustainability
In the last 15 years, Turkey has started to implement new strategies to create a sustainable environment due to the negative impact of the problems that occur. The Constitution ensures in 1982
that the living environment should be healthy for the citizens. In 1991, the awareness of the environment was increased and the Ministry of Environment have been established. However, the
economic and social issues were still not integrated within the environment (Kaygusuz 2009). The

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ZEMCH 2015 | International Conference | Bari - Lecce, Italy