Evaluation of Turkish energy sector using extended exergy analysis

Energy can be considered among the most crucial factors to meet humankind's needs and develop countries further. Turkey currently relies heavily on fossil resources, but with increasing energy consumption, the usable reserves of fossil energy resources are rapidly decreasing. This situation negatively affects the environment and the foreign trade balance, and renewable energy can potentially reduce these effects. With renewable energy sources, dependence on imported fuels should be minimized in line with our national interests. In this study, the energy sector in Turkey, the year 2019 was taken as a reference and examined using the extended exergy analysis method. The extended exergy analysis method was applied with the help of EnergyPlan (15.1) software. Extended exergy analysis is calculated and included by integrating labor, capital flow, and environmental effects into the traditional exergy concept. All these resources are converted into exergetic equivalents to see how efficiently the inputs are used. Two different scenarios were analyzed for 2019, in which extended exergy analysis was applied. The first scenario is related to assessing the actual conditions of the energy sector. In contrast, the second scenario assumes that 100% of the electricity is produced from renewable sources. For these two scenarios, labor force, capital, material consumption, and environmental impact factors were compared, and the results were presented. These results provide us with ideas in various fields such as employment, economic development, and environmental impact in Turkey.