Geothermal boom in Turkey : growth in identified capacities and potentials

Abstract

Increasing activities of geothermal development especially in the last three years result in a geothermal boom in Turkey. Not only the addition of new sites, but also updating the data of existing ones increased the currently identified capacity significantly. With the discoveries of 13 new geothermal fields, power potentials increased by 1.6 times. This study deals with hydrothermal and EGS potentials of Turkey. The geothermal resource base between 0 and 3 km depth in Turkey and the capacity of the currently identified 290 geothermal sites are determined to be 3.96 × 1023 J and 10,576 MWt, respectively. As of today, a total of 135 hydrothermal fields were individually studied, of which 38 medium to high temperature (T ≥ 100 °C) fields were simulated to estimate the power generation. The remaining 97 fields were simulated to estimate the direct use potentials. The lower and upper limits of power generation potential corresponding to P10 and P90 values are 1673 and 3140 MWe, respectively. Moreover, the lower and upper thermal potential limits of 135 hydrothermal fields corresponding to P10 and P90 values are 38.2 and 68.4 GWt, respectively.