It was once considered the door that opened to Europeans the boundless spaces of Asia. Today, Turkey is a country that is growing before our eyes, and represents one of the most interesting of the global landscape.
A nation that has almost 75 million inhabitants, growing at an average rate of 4-5% per annum and that, consequently, has a huge appetite for energy.
Not surprisingly, the turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has adopted a policy to have the best guarantee of security of supply of raw materials, which are mainly oil and gas.
Meanwhile, the country that has good resources in terms of hydropower, is developing a very demanding program to exploit renewable energy. In short, the government in Ankara has moved forward in the politics of the energy mix for some time that we also hope to our house. And as well think big so does "green" so that Erdogan has announced plans to install by 2015 about 600 MW of new geothermal capacity only.
Ankara has long been an area of primary interest for giant oil and gas such as Eni and Gazprom. The six-legged dog, along with the turkish Çalik Enerji Group, has planned the construction of the Samsun-Ceyhan pipeline and, with Gazprom as majority shareholder, is grappling with the long gestation of the ambitious South Stream.
But today the Turkish case history goes green enough to stimulate the interest of major European power utilities, including Enel. And the Enel CEO Fulvio Conti, on the sidelines of a conference organized in Istanbul Italy dall'Aspen Institute, said that "Turkey for us, potentially, is a very important country" that promises a "full development potential especially from the side of renewables. "
The group led by Conti short pricked up antennas on the market "green" in Ankara so much so that through its renewable arm, Enel Green Power, is already working with the group Uzon to exploit the geothermal potential offered by Turkey.
After the gas then Turkey is preparing to become a strategic partner for Europe also in terms of renewables. The race is open, the Bosphorus is increasingly becoming a gateway between Europe and Asia.
