Background and Motivation

Temporal Framework: 2050 Technical Endpoint and 2053 Political Commitment

This dissertation employs a dual temporal framework to balance technical planning rigor with policy alignment. The **2024–2050 period (26 years)** serves as the primary modeling horizon for infrastructure optimization, capacity expansion, and technology deployment analysis. This 26-year planning window is standard in energy system modeling because it matches typical asset lifetimes (power plants: 30-40 years, transmission infrastructure: 40-50 years) and enables comprehensive techno-economic analysis without excessive computational complexity.

The **2053 net-zero pledge** represents Turkey's political commitment announced at COP26 (Glasgow, 2021). While legally non-binding, this target signals strategic intent and provides a policy anchor for domestic regulation and international climate cooperation. The three-year gap (2050-2053) serves several practical purposes:

1. **Engineering contingency**: Multi-year construction timelines mean projects initiated in 2048-2050 require 2-3 years for commissioning. The 2050 technical endpoint provides sufficient lead time to achieve 2053 political targets.
2. **Policy adjustment period**: Final regulatory refinements, incentive program modifications, and market design updates can be implemented during 2050-2053 based on observed 2050 outcomes.
3. **Risk buffer**: Potential delays (permitting, supply chain, financing) or technology deployment challenges can be addressed without jeopardizing the 2053 commitment.

Throughout this dissertation, "2050 decarbonization milestone" refers to the technical modeling endpoint (capacity, emissions, investment through 2050), while "2053 net-zero pledge" denotes Turkey's overarching political commitment. This dual framing ensures technical feasibility analysis remains rigorous while acknowledging the broader policy context.

The Global Climate Crisis and Energy Transition Imperative

Climate change is the defining challenge of the 21st century. Addressing it requires an unprecedented systemic transformation across the global economy. In December 2015, 196 parties adopted the Paris Agreement, which sets out a global plan to avoid dangerous climate change by limiting global warming to well below 2°C, or 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

With the release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report [ipcc2023ar6], it has become clear that we need to reduce global CO₂ emissions by 45% by 2030 as compared to 2010 levels in order to meet the target of 1.5°C [ipcc2023ar6]. Further, we need to reach net-zero emissions by around 2050 [ipcc2023ar6]. The energy sector is responsible for nearly 73% of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide [iea2023c], making it the most impactful area for decarbonization.

The impacts of climate change are accelerating and require an energy transition. The world temperature has risen by 1.1°C since pre-industrial times. This has resulted in increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. Further, it has caused a rise in sea level, ocean acidification, and disruption of ecosystems. According to the scientific consensus from peer-reviewed research and the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, the current warming is unequivocally attributable to human emissions, primarily from fossil fuels [ipcc2023ar6]; [sec.]; [1.3]. If immediate and sustained mitigation efforts are not pursued, there is a severe risk of crossing tipping points that are likely to lead to irreversible feedback such as thawing of Arctic permafrost, dieback of the Amazon rainforest, and collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet [lenton2019tipping].

The technology that enables renewable energy is key to decarbonization. According to the International Renewable Energy Agency [irena2023renewable], renewable energy should account for 60-70% of global electrical generation by 2030 and 80-90% by 2050 for 1.5°C pathways. This transformation is now possible and affordable. According to IRENA [irena2023renewable], since 2010, solar photovoltaic costs (PV) have dropped by 85% while costs for onshore wind power have dropped by 70%. These are the cheapest ways to generate electricity in most parts of the world. According to IRENA data [irena2023renewable], utility-scale solar PV LCOE dropped from $378/MWh in 2010 to$49/MWh in 2023. In addition, onshore wind LCOE fell from $95/MWh in 2010 to$33/MWh in 2023. In 2023, 83% of all new power capacity installed around the world was renewable energy, totaling 473 GW [iea2023c].

Investment patterns demonstrate this shift. In 2023, global investment in renewable energy gained $500 billion (up 17% from 2022) [bloombergnef2023investment]. To reach net-zero by 2050, the annual investment in clean energy should quadruple to$4 trillion by 2030, according to the IEA [iea2021netzero]. This shows large financing gaps, especially in emerging economies. The Net Zero by 2050 report of IEA [iea2021netzero] gives estimates for the globe. Requirements for emerging economies are derived using regional breakdowns, with Turkey's share estimated from its GDP and energy sector size relative to the global total. With the Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM) and Mission Innovation summits fostering international cooperation, emerging economies face challenges from domestic divergences between developed and developing countries concerning just transition and energy equity issues.

Renewable energy utilization offers significant climate benefits. According to the International Renewable Energy Agency [irena2023renewable], renewable power generation led to a carbon dioxide (CO₂) emission reduction of about 2.1 gigatons in 2023, which is equivalent to removing 450 million cars from the road. However, the speed of rollout is inadequate. According to current trends, our planet could be up to 2.7°C hotter by the year 2100, which is significantly higher than the targets established under the Paris Agreement [unep2023emissions]. More effective planning tools are needed to optimize complex, multi-objective energy systems under uncertainty due to this gap.

Turkey's Energy Transition Context and Research Motivation

Turkey offers a unique experience to developing economies in energy transition. The country is trying to grow the economy with rapid expansion and decarbonisation promise. Turkey emits approximately 560 MtCO₂-eq (all sectors) in 2024, making it the 16th highest global emitter. The entire electricity and heat sector is responsible for around 152 MtCO₂ by 2024 (baseline parameter for this study), which is about 27% of total emissions. Turkey's political commitment to net-zero by 2053 announced in COP26 has implications for regional energy security and global climate mitigation. The 2024–2050 years (26 years) modelling of the electricity sector is the focus of the study to provide a technically feasible pathway towards 2053 net zero.

The country’s position must be understood in terms of certain factors. First, energy import dependency is around 75% [menr2024strategic], varying slightly by source and period. Second, Turkey has large untapped renewable potential—an estimated technical potential of 1,580 GW, representing the theoretical maximum considering resources, land, and environmental constraints.

Turkey's economic potential is evaluated as lower and in the range of 400-600 GW. Viable projects under current cost structures must be undertaken if we are to realize this potential. Moreover, Turkey has realized 4% or 62.8 GW of the overall technical potential that is accessible. Utilisation of economic potential - 10-15% utilized.

Technical potential values may diverge based on the methodological approach and assumptions applied by the source [menr2024strategic]; [2024]; [TEİAŞ]. TEİAŞ has stated its own methodology and fairness.) Immediate planning tools are needed to manage a timely transformation and avoid detrimental effects on energy security from higher renewable shares. These tools clarify policy trade-offs on cost, emissions and reliability.

Several reasons make Turkey the focus of the dissertation. Initially, Turkey's energy transition period 2024–2050 is a critical period where infrastructure decisions will lock in emissions trajectories for decades. Furthermore, the country's varied renewable resource availability in seven different geographical locations call for refined spatial optimization which generic global models cannot deal with. The energy market structure of Turkey combines vertically integrated state-owned enterprises and nascent competitive markets. Turkey's energy market structure presents institutional constraints not captured by models which the OECD has concentrated on.

Lastly, 2000-2024 historical data made available by TEİAŞ and MENR enable validation. Turkey is representative of other emerging economies with financial constraints and energy-transition challenges, offering methodological generalizability.

This study helps to fill important gaps relating to Turkey's energy planning. Existing studies rely on deterministic optimization tools with a limited number of scenarios, inadequate validation of forecasting accuracy and very little treatment of uncertainty.

So far, no comprehensive AI-based system for energy transition was developed for Turkey that integrates neural-physical forecasting with multi-agent reinforcement learning. Also, it is clear that these methods apply to Turkey's complex, multi-objective planning problem.

Influence on fiscal strategy and energy market policy

This thesis is fundamentally an energy economics optimization problem of how can Turkey decarbonize in a least-cost way while maximizing social welfare and ensuring energy security. Although technological, the central research issues are economic in nature.

1. **Cost-benefit Analysis**: This $226.79B investment (2023 USD) equals 0.35% of projected average GDP over the period 2024–2050 and 0.76% of GDP 2024 on annual basis. The investment-to-GDP ratio is calculated using World Bank GDP scales (2024–2050) at 5% discount rate to permit a macroeconomic affordability analysis of the transition.
2. **Energy Import Dependency**: Turkey's 75% energy import dependency [menr2024strategic] creates current account deficit of around$45B per annum (2020-2024 average) [tcmb2024exchange]. The shift will help cut back on imports of fossil fuels which will, in turn, improve trade balance and energy security. These are important objectives in the field of energy economics.
3. **Social Welfare Maximization**: The reward function approximates the welfare maximization problem of a social planner who takes into account the private costs (CAPEX, OPEX), externality (CO₂ emissions), public good (reliability of the grid), and equity (regional distribution).
4. **Policy Optimization**: Rather than optimizing engineering, this work optimizes policy-consistent pathways which take into account institutional constraints, market structures, and political feasibility the realm of energy economics and public policy.
5. **Economic Viability**: The transition is viable economically because of investment which is less than 1% of the GDP every year; feasible technologically (attainable renewable share is 97.34%) and socially acceptable (around regional equity is maintained through Gini coefficient constraints).

This economic framing of the dissertation distinguishes it from pure engineering works and in the energy-related economics literature on optimal energy transition pathways, cost-benefit analysis, and policy design.