Energy Sources, Part A: Recovery, Utilization and Environmental Effects, cilt.42, sa.1, ss.17-30, 2020 (SCI-Expanded)
Lignite is the most important domestic energy source and dominated electricity production in Turkey for many years. Recently, new lignite coal reserves have been explored and are thought to contain 15.6 billion tons, which would constitute about 7.1% of the total world’s lignite reserves. However, the potential capacity to be installed in these fields has not been effectively utilized yet. The total installed capacity reached 78,497 MW, and lignite-fired power plants had only 11.8% of this capacity in 2016. Furthermore, gross electricity production in Turkey was 274,407 GWh and the share of lignite was about 14% in the same year. It is expected in the near term, the role of domestic lignite will be increased in national electricity generation in Turkey. The electricity production of Turkey is outlined in this paper. The lignite reserves and lignite-fired power plants in Turkey are also introduced, and technologies used for producing electricity from lignite are mentioned.