A combined approach to powering a city

INFRASTRUCTURE IN ISTANBUL

Istanbul, Turkey's former capital, is one of the world's fastest-growing cities. Its official population in 2008 was 12.7 million, although most estimates put it nearer 15m. The population has increased more than tenfold since the 1950s, mainly through migration from the countryside towards the booming urban economy. Hundreds of thousands of non-skilled workers arrived every year, often settling in unregulated developments around factories and workshops on the outskirts of the city.

Building homes and infrastructure for these workers, as well as for Istanbul's burgeoning middle classes, has become a priority for the city's administration over recent decades.

In 1993-97, Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IMM) teamed up with private contractors and banks to build two co-generation plants in the municipality of Esenyurt, on the western outskirts of the city. Two of its districts, Esenkent and Bogazköy, are each home to around 25,000 people.

“We wanted to create satellite towns that were energy-neutral,” says Mehmet Akif Levent of the Directorate of Urban Transformation at IMM. The two settlements now receive all their hot water and heating from the two plants, while the electricity generated feeds the general grid. Residents now enjoy hot water and heating around the clock, without the risk of explosions or fires – a perennial fear in Istanbul, with its ageing and often shoddily built housing stock, says Levent.

The two plants, which operate on natural gas, realise fuel savings of around €2.5m every year, the municipality estimates. Turkey currently has more than 200 co-generation units installed, most of them in industrial plants in the textile and paper sectors.

THE LEGISLATIVE CONTEXT

In 2004, the European Union adopted a directive on the promotion of co-generation that requires member states to report on the measures they take to support the technology, and on the evaluations they make of their progress.

The directive was followed up by the European Commission in 2008, when it provided details for a harmonised methodology for calculating the amount of electricity produced from co-generation. Implementation has been uneven.
Germany adopted its first law on co-generation in 2002. It was extensively amended in 2008 to strengthen incentives for using the technology.

The amendment provides assistance for the upgrading of existing co-generation plants and for the construction of new facilities, as well as the construction or expansion of heat networks fed from co-generation plants. The aim of the amended law is to double Germany's electricity production from co-generation to around 25% by 2020.