Investigation of hydropower potential of Şemdinli River Basin

Abstract

The most important renewable energy source in Turkey is the hydropower. Turkey's geographical location provides important advantages for extensive use of hydropower energy sources. There are many available streams in the country for energy generation, which are mostly unexploited at the moment. Besides, electricity demand has recently increased significantly due to extensive energy use in the country. However, the required energy is mostly imported from foreign countries since it cannot be met by Turkey's own resources. In this paper, the hydropower potential of Şemdinli River, which is a subbasin of Zab Basin, is investigated. During the study, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Remote Sensing (RS) methods were utilized. According to preliminary research, one dam was planned in the Şemdinli River Basin. The possible costs of this dam and the estimated amount of annual electric energy were also calculated. For the calculations of the total costs and the total installed power capacity of the dam, Simahpp software was used. Accordingly, the total cost, installed power capacity and total annual electricity of the dam were respectively found as 61,716×106 US$, 42,813 MW and 78,76 GWh