By Levent Lezgin Kılınç, Founding Partner, Kılınç Law & Consulting

As one of the world’s fastest growing energy markets, Turkey has been increasing its drive towards greater self-sufficiency for several years. To satisfy its annual 300bn kilowatts of electricity consumption, the current energy mix has been quite well-balanced:a quarter of electricity generation is hydro-based, while roughly a third comes from natural gas and another third from coal. However, the problem is that domestic output has been insufficient to meet rising demand: energy imports have therefore averaged $55 bn a year.

In order to reduce this deficit, the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources (MENR) has been driving forward plans to boost domestic energy output across the board. This serves as a further step in the significant reforms of recent years relating to energy provision, which have resulted in much greater participation from private entities, and the creation of a more competitive energy market.

A more recent issue has emerged from the economic problems resulting from this year’s sharp devaluation of the Turkish Lira. In October, electricity and natural gas prices increased for the third consecutive month: electricity rates for residential consumers rose by 8 percent and for commercial and industrial consumers by 18 per cent. Since January 2018, Turkey’s natural gas prices have increased by 29.5 and 54 percent respectively for residential and commercial/industrial consumers.

As one of the top ten countries…