Reforming Turkish Energy Markets

Turkey has been reforming its energy markets since the 1980s, culminating in two major bills in the early 2000s. The country has restructured electricity and natural gas markets, establishing an independent regulatory agency (EMRA) and passed legislation on renewable and nuclear energy. With these regulatory reforms, Turkey, as a candidate country for accession to the European Union (EU), has aimed to direct the energy markets to a more competitive environment in parallel with EU energy directives. This book contains an analysis of regulatory reforms in Turkish energy markets (electricity, natural gas, renewable and nuclear energy), the impact of these reforms on country’s energy portfolio and role in global energy trade, especially between the EU, the Caspian, Caucasus, and Central Asia. Finally, the book concludes with recommendations for Turkish energy policy. The authors are expert scholars who have written extensively on Turkish regulatory reform and energy economics and who have broad knowledge of global energy market dynamics. The book will be a unique guide for those concerned with the different areas of the Turkish economy and international audiences interested in energy markets of Turkey and surrounding regions, making the book of interest to not only researchers in academia but also industry practitioners, regulators and policy makers as well.

By enacting the Electricity Market Law in February 2001 and the Natural Gas Market Law in May 2001, respectively, Turkey began reforming the institutional environment of the Turkish energy industry. The aim was to unbundle the state-owned monopolistic structures of the markets by separating vertically. The new legal structure has de jure changed the pre-reform institutional structure of the energy markets. In other words, the legal change has aimed to introduce competition to the Turkish energy industry. In order to ensure this objective, as an independent regulatory agency with full regulatory discretions over both the electricity market and the natural gas market, Energy Market Regulatory Authority (EMRA) was established. In this context, the chapter aims to review the process of institutional change and to assess the current institutional issues in the energy markets of Turkey.

Through a variety of interlinked measures, Turkey's energy reforms have achieved energy security for a fast-growing economy with rapidly increasing energy needs. These measures include legislation regarding electricity, gas, renewable energy, and energy efficiency; the establishment of an energy sector regulatory authority; energy price reform; the creation of a functional electricity market and large-scale introduction of natural gas; the restructuring of state-owned energy enterprises; and large-scale private sector participation through privatization and new investment. The objectives of this are to: (a) inform future energy reforms and reformers seeking to learn and benefit from Turkey's experience, and (b) contribute to the dialogue on future energy reforms in Turkey. The report will present Turkey's accomplishments in developing and implementing market-oriented energy reforms as well as selected key reform challenges going forward. In terms of reform milestones, the primary focus is on the electric power and natural gas sectors, although energy pricing and subsidies in the petroleum sector are also addressed. The report covers mainly the period starting from 2001, when progressive electricity and natural gas market laws were enacted, though the preceding period - from the opening of the energy sector to private investment in 1984 up to the enactment of the new energy market laws in 2001 - is covered briefly to present key milestones and to highlight key lessons. In terms of future challenges, the report discusses the ongoing and unfinished liberalization of the electricity and gas markets as well as required government support, including governance, in the energy sector. The challenges include the reform of the natural gas market, further development of the electricity market, and governance issues in the energy sector. Discussion of environmental and social issues and challenges has been integrated into the relevant sections.

The book explains the reasons for the recent economic success of Turkey by examining the transformation of the private sector and the development policies implemented by the Turkish government. Further concrete insights are provided by professionals working for institutional and business players such as SACE, the first Italian insurance group in the field of export credit, and ABIGEM, a business center supporting SMEs in Turkey. Turkish Airlines, winner of the Best Airline in Europe award in 2012, also contributed to the volume through useful information provided by its press office. Turkey’s strategic role in the energy market is then analyzed, with discussion of the limits and opportunities of the oil, gas, and renewable sectors. In addition, careful attention is paid to the difficult relations between Turkey and the European Union and to Turkey’s application for EU membership. Turkey is one of the most important emerging countries in the world thanks to the booming economic growth that has been achieved there during the past decade. This book analyzes the increasingly key role played by Turkey within the international community by focusing on two main issues: the economic scenario and the energy market.​

This book investigates the overall natural gas reform performance of Turkey, addressing both shortfalls and setbacks that have prevented Turkey from the fulfillment of the regulatory implementation since 2001, and how the prospectively liberalised natural gas market can effectively operate at all levels. Although eighteen years have passed since the introduction of the first legislation as a basis for a more liberalised Turkish natural gas market, the completion of the reform process still suffers from a lack of enforcement. The book offers recommendations to address this, the main one being that policy makers should give due consideration to the consolidation of EMRA’s independent role with appropriate safeguards laid out to prevent attempts of regulatory misuse. The book concludes by suggesting that there is a compelling need to move forward with a consolidated reform sooner rather than later if Turkey genuinely wishes to take a leadership position in the race to become an efficient gas hub and be part of Europe’s single energy market.

Establishing a competitive retail electricity market has always been challenging. While many countries have taken major steps in restructuring wholesale electricity markets, reforms have been very slow in the retail market because of political interventions, insufficient consumer response, and extensive investment requirements. In this study, we discuss the politicization of retail market reforms by providing evidence from Turkish electricity market reform. The Turkish experience serves as an example that establishing a well-functioning retail market may not be a straightforward task in countries where electricity prices are considered a public policy tool, rather than an economic outcome of competitive electricity markets.

The Political Economy of Regulation in Turkey brings together leading international scholars and experts on Turkey and regulatory reform to provide essential information on the recent Turkish experience and its relation to competition policy. After the 1980 liberalization reform, Turkey tried to introduce competition in many industries, but network industries have remained as monopolies. At the end of the 1990s, regulatory reform was initiated and independent regulatory agencies have been established by the government. Comprehensive discussions of these network industries, in particular airlines, electricity, natural gas, telecommunications and environment regulations, are offered. The contributors inquire how economic theory and historical analyses can enlighten the character of market processes and the role for government action in these industries, and the contributions shed light on the very recent changes in the regulatory structure and important legal cases that shape the future of regulated industries. This book discusses these issues in an international perspective and relates the Turkish experience to other similar countries, such as in Eastern Europe and Central America. This book serves as a useful guide to those who want to understand major changes in Turkey and regulatory reforms in other emerging markets, making it of interest to researchers and PhD students concerned with regulatory economics, the Turkish economy, and economic policy in emerging markets.

This paper analyses the potential effect of electricity reform on different households, using a series of potential scenarios for price changes, and consumption information from the 2003 Turkish Household Expenditure Survey. Turkey is emerging as a regional energy market, hub, and transit country between Europe and Asia, and has been reforming her energy sector in line with EU Energy Acquis since 2001. Introducing a cost reflective tariff is an essential component of Turkish electricity reform. Yet, this tariff structure might create real hardship for, and thus strong opposition from, some households, which might not be compensated through the rather undeveloped Turkish social security system. Perhaps to avoid the possible political costs of this before the general election of November 2007, the Turkish Government disregarded the sector regulator EMRA's insistence, and postponed pursuing such tariff for at least five years. Identifying these households, however, helps to anticipate opposition, and perhaps to mitigate it partially through compensation schemes. This might also facilitate Turkey's integration with the Energy Community of South East Europe created in 2005. To explore the likely effect of tariff changes on various groups of households we apply six scenarios. Firstly, we analyse the likely impact of EMRA's proposal of reflecting large regional variation in technical and non-technical losses. We also consider the effect of a potential efficiency saving from the proposed merger of distribution companies. Then, we explore the potential outcome of raising the currently low ratio of residential to industrial tariffs to OECD average. Furthermore, we study the effect of reducing the rather high level of taxes on households. Lastly we examine the likely consequence of changing the present flat rate prices per kilowatt hour to a tariff which reflects more accurately the pattern of consumer-related and consumption-related costs.

The Turkey Energy Outlook (TEO) proposes energy policies to further improve energy security, increase use of domestic energy resources, advance energy efficiency, build clean energy infrastructure, develop a more competitive energy market with cost-reflective energy pricing and also to support all necessary steps towards achieving a sustainable energy system in Turkey. The main themes include increased energy efficiency, higher use of renewable energy, improving electricity and natural gas markets, building Turkey’s first nuclear power plants, increased energy technology R&D and continuing and expanding the recent efforts to discover and produce more natural gas and oil. Turkey’s per capita energy and electricity consumption are less than half of the OECD average. As a country that is still developing, compared to Turkey’s OECD peers, the growth of energy services per capita will be much higher. This is necessary to accommodate increasing incomes, population growth, industrialization, urbanization, increased mobility and wider access to modern energy services. The Turkey Energy Outlook (TEO) provides an independent assessment of changing technological opportunities and policy priorities to secure an efficient, competitive and sustainable energy future. Two TEO Scenarios quantify the consequences of two different policy pathways out to 2040.