EUD Chairman Cem Aşık: Domestic coal will maintain its importance in Turkey’s supply security in the coming period

The board of directors of the ELECTRICITY Producers Association (EÜD) held its first meeting of the new term at Yeniköy Thermal Power Plant within YK Energy. Cem Aşık, President of EÜD, made a statement after the meeting and emphasised the importance of domestic resources in Turkey’s energy supply security and said: “Domestic coal will maintain its importance in Turkey’s supply security in the coming period. YK Energy fulfils an important mission both by using domestic resources and through efficiency and rehabilitation works.”

The board of directors of the Electricity Producers Association (EÜD) held its first meeting of the new term at Yeniköy Thermal Power Plant within YK Energy. At the end of the meeting hosted by M. Serhat Dinç, General Manager of YK Energy, Cem Aşık, Chairman of the Board of Directors of EÜD, made evaluations on global energy supply security, the importance of domestic resources in Turkey’s electricity supply security and YK Energy’s thermal power plants. Drawing attention to the importance of electricity generation with domestic resources, Aşık said, “Converting domestic resources into electricity and doing so in an uninterrupted manner is a very critical issue. Domestic coal will maintain its importance in Turkey’s supply security in the coming period and will provide the necessary ancillary services for the operation of renewable energy power plants. YK Energy has a great importance in Turkey’s electricity supply security with Yeniköy Kemerköy Thermal Power Plants.”

Pointing out that energy production should be continued in a sustainable and environmentally friendly manner, Aşık said, “YK Energy shows that environmentally friendly production is possible through rehabilitation works. The mine sites where coal production has ended have been successfully rehabilitated and afforested. Many old mine sites that have been afforested have been successfully restored to nature. The olive trees that were moved were also brought back into agricultural production without any loss of yield. We expect these examples to become widespread.”

M. Serhat Dinç, General Manager of YK Energy, who hosted the meeting, pointed out that Yeniköy and Kemerköy power plants constitute 2.5 per cent of Turkey’s total installed capacity and said: “As YK Energy, we continued our investments in both efficiency and environment after privatisation. With the investments to improve the production processes after privatisation, the capacity utilisation rate of our power plants increased from 64 percent to 83 percent and availability from 72 percent to 88 percent. Gross generation increased from 5,221 gigawatt hours to approximately 8000 GW hours.”

Source: Hürriyet