Turkey-Germany Heading for Renewable Energy Cooperation

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Projects for renewable energy resources will be on the negotiations table during Germany's Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy Peter Altmaier's visit to Ankara aimed at improving the relations between the two countries.

Germany meets 13.1 percent of its total power consumption from renewable energy but still criticized by the other EU countries for not yet having pledged to leave coal based power generation.

Altmaier during talks with his Turkish counterpart Energy and Natural Resources Minister Fatih Dönmez today, participated in a meeting also joined by the top executives of Turkish-German energy companies.

"The second Turkey-Germany Energy Forum opens, and the two ministers co-sign a letter of intent regarding future cooperation on energy," says German Energy Ministry in a press release issued after the meeting.

Four working groups

The future Germany-Turkey cooperation envisages of founding four working groups focusing on

* Renewable energy.
* Energy capability.
* Substructural and sectoral unity.
* Regulations.

"Minister Dönmez and I are willing to extend energy cooperation between the two countries. We must focus on developing energy capability, renewable energy resources and modernization of the energy subsstructure," said German minister and added: "We are targeting to work for safe power transmission lines and to provide more employment."

On the second leg of the Energy Forum Thomas Bareiß Secretary of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy  and Alparslan Bayraktar Turkey's Deputy Minister for Energy and Natural Resources will meet.

Germany's ground breaking achievements

Germany's biggest energy producer E.ON announced on May 1st that they had achieved to generate more than 10 Bn kWh electric energy between 13:00 and 15:15 PM that day from renewable resources.

Exceeding the existing total energy consumption, these figures brought Germany a ground breaking record in renewable enery generation. The renewable energy output had overpassed the energy consumption for a few hours in Germany also on Jan. 1, 2018.

The share of renewable energy in Germany's electric generation

In GermanyIn in the first half of 2018 the share of energy output from renewable resources increased by 10 percent to reach 36.3 percent (118 Bn kWh) of the country's total electric generation and the share of coal and lignit based energy fell to 35.1 percent (114 Bn kWh).

No concrete steps for exiting from coal

Nevertheless, inspite of the achievements in energy generation from renewable resources, Germany's CO2 emissions is not falling. The high emissions rates are related to lignit based power generation and the heating and transportation systems as well.

Germany's exit from coal policy remains bleak unless "Exit From Coal Commission" unanimously adopts a fair exit plan. (PT/EK)