f The Geothermal Energy Exploration Activities of MTA in Turkey

As is known, our country has a great potential in terms of geothermal energy. Our Directorate-General plays an important role in the discovery and evaluation of this potential and produces significant projects in this respect. The theoretical geothermal energy potential of Turkey is accepted as 31,500 MWt. In our country, the first geothermal energy exploration studies were initiated by MTA in 1962 in İzmir Balçova. Up to now, 504 wells, having a total depth of 252.515m, have been drilled, and a total of 190 geothermal fields have been discovered, and including the natural discharges, a total of 4550 MWt heat energy has been produced. The number of discovered geothermal fields has increased from 173 to 190 with the drilling activities. In Turkey, geothermal energy is mainly used in thermal tourism, space heating, greenhouse applications, electricity production and industrial mineral (CO2) production. In Turkey, there are 18 geothermal fields, discovered by MTA, which are suitable for geothermal power production. Within these fields, there are 7 fields which are currently used for electricity production and/or in project stage with license. In our country power production from geothermal energy is expected to reach 600 MWe by the end of 2013. The direct use applications of geothermal energy in our country include district heating, greenhouse heating and thermal tourism. Currently, there are 18 settlements which use geothermal for central house heating (81060 Residance Equivalence, 729 MWt), there are 15 fields where greenhouse heating is applied (1989500 m2, 379 MWt) and there are a total of 306 thermal resorts which offer medical treatment and thermal tourism applications. In our department, drilling studies have been initiated in a total of 26 wells that were programmed in 2010, and 19 of these wells have been completed, reaching a total geothermal drilling depth of 21533.15 m. With the completed wells, about 119,38 MWt of energy has been added to the country potential, and only with the wells drilled by our directorate the geothermal energy potential has reached 3906 MWt.