Ord. Prof. Dr. Niyazi Serdar Sariciftci, President of Johannes Kepler University Physicochemistry Chair and Institute, stated that Turkey has a great capacity in solar energy.
Johannes Kepler University Physicochemistry Chair and Institute President Ord. Prof. Dr. Niyazi Serdar Sariciftci made a speech at the “Contemporary Science and Art Talks” organized online by Yasar University. In this speech, he emphasized that two of the 17 topics in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals are accessible and clean energy and climate change.
Pointing out that the power capacity coming from the sun to the world is over 170 thousand terawatts, Sariciftci said, “The world’s need is 17 terawatts, thousands of times the energy needed every moment, every minute. It is in our hands to benefit.”
Noting that foreign dependency in energy affects the current account deficit Sariciftci added saying, “Our country’s sun is capable of meeting Turkey’s energy needs. Although Germany receives much less sunlight than Turkey, it has the capacity installed well above us. In Turkey, we can easily reach a capacity of 50 gigawatts in the sun. When we look at night, day, winter, summer, the whole year, 2 thousand kilowatt-hours of energy can be obtained with a one square meter panel. There is such a large, empty and non-arable land in our country that we can easily obtain energy even if we turn them off. You can get the energy that a serious nuclear power plant can bring with solar power plants.”
“One of the biggest problems in renewable energy is storage”
Having the first patent and publication in the world with his work on plastic organic solar cells, Sariciftci stated that one of the biggest problems in renewable energy sources such as solar and wind is the storage of produced energy.
Pointing out that serious studies have been carried out in these areas recently, Sariciftci said:
The latest development in this area is to obtain artificial gasoline or artificial natural gas directly from solar energy. This kind of technology is called ‘artificial photosynthesis’. Carbon dioxide, water, solar energy can be converted into various hydrocarbon fuels by photo or electrosynthesis. Technologies are being developed in this regard. Since carbon dioxide is recycled in this way, these kinds of artificial fuels become completely harmless to nature as non-carbon-free fuels. In addition, with these chemical energy storage methods, solar and wind energy is also stored. This will have serious benefits for both nature and economy.”
Source: AA / Translated by Irem Yildiz