Eighteen billion Turkish liras will be used over the next five years partly derived from a 6.8 percent power price increase to overhaul Turkey's old electricity power distribution system, Turkey's energy watchdog head said Monday.
'We face some questions as to why we increased the electricity prices, but we had to raise the prices because of high costs and the needs of our transmission system,' Head of Turkish Energy Market Regulatory Authority (EMRA) Mustafa Yilmaz said in an interview at Anadolu Agency energy desk.
EMRA increased the power price by 6.8 percent at the beginning of 2016 which Yilmaz defended by highlighting that Turkey's transmission system failed last year because of deficiencies in the 70-year-old transmission system.
Turkey's overall power distribution and transmission loss is about 12 percent, but in the south east and eastern regions of the country, losses of an average of 70 percent are seen.
Yilmaz explained that social projects, including public service awareness campaigns in the southern and eastern regions are being implemented to deal with electricity losses while distribution companies will upgrade the system with the latest technology.
Writing By Huseyin Erdogan
Anadolu Agency
huseyin.erdogan@aa.com.tr