Ankara published its long-promised hydrogen strategy in late January, outlining in broad terms the fuel’s envisioned place in the domestic energy mix over the next three decades and the policies required to put it there.

Ambitious long-term targets are set for scaling up capacity and reducing the cost of green hydrogen. Yet the plans are short on specifics, heavily backloaded—the main advances coming well into the 2030s and beyond—and implicitly confirm that hydrogen development will be a relatively low priority within the country’s complex energy policymaking rubric in the near term.

Turkish energy policy is and will remain driven above all by the need to ensure security of supply given a paucity of hydrocarbons, an overriding concern validated by the gas crisis facing its EU neighbours since Russia turned off the taps last year. This underpins the country’s seemingly environmentally contradictory combination of an impressively swift buildout of renewables, which now account for more than 50pc of installed generation capacity, with a refusal to commit to phasing out coal, of which it has sizeable domestic reserves.

70GW – Electrolyser capacity targeted by 2053

Similarly, the hydrogen strategy unveiled by Energy and Natural Resources Minister Fatih Donmez on 19 January focuses primarily on the green form of the fuel, reflecting the country’s vast solar and wind resources and the need to decarbonise its large heavy industrial sector in order to export to carbon-sensitive markets. However, it also calls for supporting the production of brown hydrogen and synthetic methane from its sizeable local lignite reserves.

The blueprint enshrines two core green hydrogen targets to be met by 2053, the year by which the government has pledged to reach carbon-neutrality. Electrolyser capacity is to reach 70GW, with interim targets of 2GW in 2025 and 5GW in 2035, while production costs are to be halved from an estimated $2.4/kg in 2035 to no more than $1.2/kg. A study published last May by the International Renewable Energy Agency calculated potential costs by mid-century at around the same level under its optimistic scenario, thereby placing Turkey among the 25 cheapest international producers by that date.

Ankara’s focus on scaling up green hydrogen in the long term also reflects the fact that the first priority when deploying expanding renewables capacity will be to curb dependence on imported fossil fuels in the electricity system. A National Energy Plan published on the same day calls for the installation of around 80GW of solar and wind capacity by 2035 for that purpose alone. However, as renewables capacity has ramped up rapidly over the past three years, the government’s attentions have turned to the problem of intermittency, with new regulations issued in November incentivising renewables developers to install energy storage facilities alongside their generation plants. Green hydrogen’s potential for use for energy storage as well as a fuel features prominently in the strategy.

Short on detail

Bar the two headline 2053 targets, the roadmap is short on specifics. Despite the country’s resources for green hydrogen production, it has yet to attract the multibillion-dollar, multi-gigawatt projects announced by international investors in similarly well-endowed states elsewhere in the region such as Egypt and Oman. The firmest near-term plans are modest and relate to decarbonising the heating sector by blending hydrogen into the natural gas distribution network—thereby reducing absorption of imported natural gas—for which early tests have already been completed. The stated aim is to add hydrogen in proportions of 5–20pc by 2025.

The plan also commits the government to “promoting” through undefined means the use of hydrogen for abatement in the heavy industrial sector, notably in steel and cement, of which Turkey is among the world’s top ten exporters. The decarbonisation of such sectors  is likely to be driven in large part by external forces, such as the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism. Meanwhile, the potential for hydrogen exports receives little attention in the blueprint beyond reference to their possibility in the long-term.

The document points to the strong focus on localising the entire supply chain of the nascent industry. It mandates authorities to create the conditions conducive to the development of a full hydrogen ecosystem—crucially including electrolyser manufacture—involving both the public and private sectors.

A similar strategy pursued successfully in the solar PV sector has insulated the country somewhat from the spiralling input prices inflating developers’ costs elsewhere since the pandemic, while aligning with Ankara’s wider energy security preoccupation. It was a theme emphasised by Donmez a year ago as he launched Turkey’s first—and as-yet only—green hydrogen production project on the northwest coast, to be developed by the South Marmara Development Agency and the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey on the government side in cooperation three private local firms.

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Author: Clare Dunkley