Bayraktar pitches nuclear and offshore wind as Russia touts home-grown finance

Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar used the Verona Eurasian Economic Forum in Istanbul to present a power-sector buildout built on nuclear energy, offshore wind and grid spending, while Russian officials and Gazprom executives described how sanctions-era financing has shifted to domestic markets.

The two-day forum, held Thursday and Friday at the Ciragan Palace with participants from more than 30 countries, ended on Oct. 23, according to TRT World, which drew on Anadolu Agency reporting.

Cutting a 70% import bill

Bayraktar said Türkiye imports nearly 70% of the energy it consumes and treats reducing that share as a matter of national security. Renewables already account for more than 62% of installed electricity capacity, he said, with combined wind and solar capacity above 43 gigawatts.

The government allocates about 2 GW of new capacity each year through its Renewable Energy Resource Area program, known by its Turkish acronym YEKA, and expects to run its first offshore wind auctions between January and June 2027, alongside what the minister described as significant investment in the transmission grid.

Nuclear power is the second pillar. The first reactor at the Akkuyu plant, built with Russia's Rosatom, is expected to be commissioned within months, Bayraktar said. Once all four units are running, the 4.8 GW plant is expected to cover about 10% of the country's electricity demand. Ankara's longer-term target is 20 GW of nuclear capacity by 2050.

Bayraktar also promoted a voluntary pledge dubbed "35 by 35," which calls for electricity to make up 35% of the world's final energy use by 2035, ahead of the COP31 United Nations climate conference that Türkiye hosts in Antalya next month. He said the meeting would focus on implementation.

Russia's capital turns inward

The Russian delegation, which included Deputy Finance Minister Ivan Chebeskov, used the forum to describe a financial system that has replaced foreign funding with domestic money since 2022. Moscow Exchange Chairman Viktor Zhidkov said retail investors hold stock assets worth 16 trillion rubles ($199 billion) and that private investors have bought more than 4 trillion rubles ($50 billion) of corporate debt since 2022. Companies placed 7.2 trillion rubles ($89.6 billion) of bonds from January through September, a 20% rise on a year earlier, TRT World reported.

Ignat Dirks of Gazprom said the share of the company's financing raised on foreign markets fell from 77% in 2022 to 13% by mid-2026. He cited more than $14 billion in domestic refinancing over four years and about $20 billion in project financing.

What it means

The forum put two strategies side by side. Ankara is trying to shrink its import exposure by building generation at home, with a Russian-built reactor at the center of the plan even as it courts Western partners on renewables and climate diplomacy before COP31. Moscow, by contrast, is showcasing how far its companies can fund themselves without Western capital, a message aimed at partners weighing whether Russian projects remain bankable. For Türkiye, Akkuyu's commissioning date and the 2027 offshore tenders are the milestones that will show whether the 70% dependence figure starts to fall.