July 25 (SeeNews) - Turkey's energy minister Taner Yilmaz said on Thursday the country will raise its installed power capacity to 78 gigawatts (GW) in the next five years.
Turkey's total installed power generation capacity reached 60.121 GW in the first half of 2013, up from 57.059 GW in December 2012, Turkish media reported earlier citing data from the Turkish Electricity Transmission Company.
Turkey's electricity network, with the capacity to service 95 million people, is the second largest in Europe, Yilmaz said during the handover ceremony of Dicle Electricity Distribution Company, according to a statement published by the development ministry.
The amount of grid losses in the country has decreased to 9.4%, excluding the province of Van. This rate is under the average for 27 European countries, Yildiz added.
Turkey's Iskaya Dogu Ortak Girisim Grubu won a government tender for the takeover of Dicle Electricity Distribution Company in March with a bid of $385 million (292 million euro).
($ = 0.758 euro)