Global warming and renewable energy sources for sustainable development in Turkey

Turkey, with its young population and growing energy demand per person, its fast growing urbanization, and its economic development, has been one of the fast growing power markets of the world for the last two decades. It is expected that the demand for electric energy in Turkey will be 300 billionkWh by the year 2010 and 580 billionkWh by the year 2020. Turkey is heavily dependent on expensive imported energy resources that place a big burden on the economy and air pollution is becoming a great environmental concern in the country. In this regard, renewable energy resources appear to be the one of the most efficient and effective solutions for clean and sustainable energy development in Turkey. Turkey's geographical location has several advantages for extensive use of most of these renewable energy sources. This article presents a review of the potential and utilization of the renewable energy sources in Turkey.