New record from the electricity market!

The Energy Market Regulatory Authority (EMRA) has published its current electricity market report. According to this report, while the number of electricity consumers in our country reached a record level, the decrease in the production of natural gas-based power plants in electricity production and the increase in the use of domestic renewable resources attracted attention. According to the information compiled by the electricity tariff comparison website EnAttractive, the total number of electricity consumers increased by 3.5 percent compared to the previous year and reached 43 million 800 thousand. While the number of home users was 35 million, the number of commercial house users was 7 million and the number of industrial subscribers was 342 thousand. Solar power generation takes flight While 76 percent of licensed electricity production was carried out by the private sector, the share of state-owned power plants in total electricity production was 24 percent. While 29 percent of the total electricity need was met from natural gas-based power plants, 12 percent was provided by dam hydroelectric power plants. The amount of electricity generated from natural gas decreased by 38 percent compared to the previous year, while the production from dam hydropower increased by 83 percent. Solar power generation increased by a record 487 percent. Generation from wind, which is one of the other renewable sources, increased by 83 percent, electricity generated from rivers increased by 25 percent and production from geothermal sources increased by 18 percent. These figures showed that the share of production from domestic and environmental sources in total electricity production increased very rapidly. The fastest increase was in Şırnak , followed by Ankara with 3 million 34 thousand consumers and Izmir with 2 million 466 thousand meters. Şırnak, whose number of consumers increased by 9.22 percent compared to the same period of the previous year, was the province where the number of electricity consumers increased the most. Şırnak was followed by Bingöl with an increase of 8.30 percent and Edirne with an increase of 8.18 percent. Use in homes increased, industry fell According to the total electricity consumption statistics, while the consumption in the residential group increased by 2.15 percent compared to the same period of the previous year, consumption in the industrial group decreased by 5.39 percent. While 42 percent of the total electricity consumed in Turkey was used by the industrial group, 28 percent of the total electricity was used in commercial houses and 24 percent in homes. The number of free consumers was a record decline There was bad news from the free consumer market, where new limits were announced in the past days and 20 million people are free to change electricity supply companies. The number of free consumers, which started to decline from 4 million 760 thousand units, reached the lowest level seen since 2011, when the liberalization process accelerated, with 131 thousand 813 units in February 2019. Çağada KIRIM, the founder of EnCazip, who made an evaluation on the subject, said, "We see that the records in the electricity market come one after another, the general figures are quite good, and the market is quite strong. However, there is a significant decline or even an end in the number of free consumers, which is the most important part that concerns consumers. I think it is not sustainable that the number of free consumers is so low when 76 percent of production is done by private companies. It should not be forgotten that it is almost impossible to talk about consumers getting high benefits in markets where there is no competition. Therefore, it will be in the interest of our country and consumers to open the electricity market to competition as much as we can and to make it our priority to increase the number of free consumers in the future."