ARTICLE IN PRESS

Energy Policy 38 (2010) 2438–2445

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Energy Policy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/enpol

Turkey’s short-term gross annual electricity demand forecast by fuzzy

logic approach
Serhat Kucukali a,1, Kemal Baris b,n
a
Civil Engineering Department, Zonguldak Karaelmas University, Incivez 67100, Zonguldak, Turkey
b
Mining Engineering Department, Zonguldak Karaelmas University, Incivez 67100, Zonguldak, Turkey

a r t i c l e in f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This paper aims to forecast Turkey’s short-term gross annual electricity demand by applying fuzzy logic
Received 28 July 2009 methodology while general information on economical, political and electricity market conditions of
Accepted 16 December 2009 the country is also given. Unlike most of the other forecast models about Turkey’s electricity demand,
Available online 12 January 2010
which usually uses more than one parameter, gross domestic product (GDP) based on purchasing power
Keywords: parity was the only parameter used in the model. Proposed model made good predictions and captured
Electricity demand the system dynamic behavior covering the years of 1970–2014. The model yielded average absolute
Turkey relative errors of 3.9%. Furthermore, the model estimates a 4.5% decrease in electricity demand of
Fuzzy logic Turkey in 2009 and the electricity demand growth rates are projected to be about 4% between 2010 and
2014. It is concluded that forecasting the Turkey’s short-term gross electricity demand with the
country’s economic performance will provide more reliable projections. Forecasting the annual
electricity consumption of a country could be made by any designer with the help of the fuzzy logic
procedure described in this paper. The advantage of this model lies on the ability to mimic the human
thinking and reasoning.
& 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction and urbanization will increase the demand on natural resources

Energy is the most important factor promoting the quality of
life and providing economical and social progress. However,
increasing energy prices, global warming and climate change,
increase in world energy demand, dependence on fossil fuels
being consumed away rapidly and inadequacy of the develop-
ment in new energy technologies to commercially meet the
increasing energy demand make the countries worry about
energy supply security.
Furthermore, because of the global reflections of the financial
crisis initiated in the USA in mid-2008, the world has been
experiencing a period where new investments have almost been
stopped, it is difficult to find low-cost credits for investments,
continuous fluctuations in petroleum, natural gas and material
prices are dominant in the market and there are high losses in
industrial productions. This situation has also been affecting
Turkish energy sector as well as the world.
Despite these adverse effects all around the world, there can be
no doubt that the increase in world population, industrialization
n
Corresponding author. Tel.: + 90 372 257 40 10/1525; fax: + 90 372 257 40 23.
E-mail addresses: kucukali78@hotmail.com (S. Kucukali),
kemalbaris@karaelmas.edu.tr (K. Baris).
1
Tel.: + 90 372 257 40 10/1631.
and energy in mid and long-term. According to International
Energy Agency (IEA), by the year 2030 total energy demand of the
world will be 50% higher than that of in the year 2005 (Table 1).
IEA also proposed that 85% of this increase in energy demand will
be resulted from non-OECD (Organization for Economic Co-
operation and Development) countries (especially China and
India) which have high economical growth rates and rapid
increases in population.
As parallel to energy, dependence on electricity has increased
worldwide in last decades. According to Energy Information
Administration (EIA), electricity is projected to supply an
increasing share of the world’s total energy demand and is the
fastest-growing form of end-use energy worldwide in the mid-
term. Since 1990, growth in net electricity generation has
outpaced the growth in total energy consumption (2.9% per year
and 1.9% per year, respectively), and the growth in demand for
electricity continues to outpace growth in total energy use
throughout the EIA’s reference projection (Fig. 1) (EIA, 2009).
Energy is the most important development priorities in
Turkey. The energy demand of Turkey, electricity in particular,
is growing rapidly since it is a socially and economically
developing country. Furthermore, the share of electricity in final
energy consumption in Turkey has been increasing as parallel to
the trends in developed and developing countries. Therefore, it is
expected that Turkey will demand more electricity in future.

0301-4215/$ - see front matter & 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2009.12.037
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
S. Kucukali, K. Baris / Energy Policy 38 (2010) 2438–2445 2439

Table 1 Table 2
World primary energy demand (IEA, 2007). Gross electricity generation and electricity demand values (GWh) of Turkey.

Energy source Energy demand (Mtoe) AARGa(%) Years Gross generation Import Export Gross demand

1980 2000 2005 2015 2030 2005–2030 1975 15,623 96 15,719

1976 18,283 332 18,615
Coal 1786 2292 2892 3988 4994 2.2 1977 20,565 492 21,057
Oil 3106 3647 4000 4720 5585 1.3 1978 21,726 621 22,347
Gas 1237 2089 2354 3044 3948 2.1 1979 22,522 1044 23,566
Nuclear 186 675 721 804 854 0.7 1980 23,275 1341 24,617
Hydro 147 226 251 327 416 2.0 1981 24,673 1616 26,289
Biomass and waste 753 1041 1149 1334 1615 1.4 1982 26,552 1773 28,325
Other renewables 12 53 61 145 308 6.7 1983 27,347 2221 29,568
Total 7228 10,023 11,429 14,361 17,721 1.8 1984 30,614 2653 33,267
1985 34,219 2142 36,361
a
Average annual rate of growth. 1986 39,695 777 40,471
1987 44,353 572 44,925
1988 48,049 381 48,430
1989 52,043 559 52,602
3.0 1990 57,543 176 907 56,812
1991 60,246 759 506 60,499
2.5 1992 67,342 189 314 67,217
1993 73,808 213 589 73,432
Index, 1990 = 1

2.0 1994 78,322 31 570 77,783

1995 86,247 0 696 85,552
1.5 1996 94,862 270 343 94,789
1997 103,296 2492 271 105,517
1998 111,022 3299 298 114,023
1.0
1999 116,440 2330 285 118,485
2000 124,922 3791 437 128,276
0.5 Net Electrcity Generation
2001 122,725 4579 433 126,871
Total Energy Consumption
2002 129,400 3588 435 132,553
0.0 2003 140,581 1158 588 141,151
1990 1994 1998 2002 2006 2010 2014 2018 2022 2026 2030 2004 150,698 464 1144 150,018
2005 161,956 636 1798 160,794
Years
2006 176,300 573 2236 174,637
2007 189,500 864 2422 187,942
Fig. 1. Growth in world electric power generation and total energy consumption
2008 198,100 790 1063 197,827
(Data source: EIA, 2009).

Several researchers have attempted to forecast electricity demand Table 3

of Turkey by different methods such as, Autoregressive Integrated Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources (2008) projections on Turkey’s
electricity demand by sectors.
Moving Average (ARIMA) modeling (Erdogdu, 2007), Grey Prediction
with Rolling Mechanism (GPRM) (Akay and Atak, 2007), the cycle Years Demand Industry Domestic Transport Agriculture
analysis (Ediger and Tatlidil (2002)), Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) (GWh) (GWh) (GWh) (GWh) (GWh)
(Hamzacebi, 2007). Official forecasting models were also developed
for planning purposes by Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources of 2008 206,400 83,558 79,050 1377 4615
2009 223,500 91,823 86,250 1507 4820
Turkey (MENR), the State Planning Organization (SPO) and the State 2010 242,020 100,882 94,093 1651 5026
Institute of Statistics of Turkey (SIS). 2011 262,000 110,665 102,900 1810 5225
Furthermore, in the previous studies (Hamzacebi, 2007; 2012 283,500 120,786 112,500 1982 5432
Erdogdu, 2007) it was attempted to forecast the net electricity 2013 306,100 131,682 122,500 2168 5650
2014 330,300 142,853 133,000 2372 5875
consumption of Turkey. However, we have tried to forecast gross
2015 356,200 154,940 143,430 2593 6108
electricity consumption of Turkey. The reason was that using net 2016 383,000 168,110 153,600 2835 6356
electricity consumption may not yield an accurate estimation 2017 410,700 182,087 163,800 3100 6613
since electricity networks could be restructured or renewed 2018 439,600 197,431 174,000 3388 6881
throughout the forecasted period so that the losses could be 2019 469,500 212,438 184,700 3703 7159
2020 499,490 227,767 195,302 4047 7449
minimized. The electricity network losses decreased from 19.3%
to 14.5% between 2001 and 2007 and this trend is expected to
continue in the following years because of the privatization of
Turkey’s electricity distribution industry. Table 2 shows gross found unidirectional causality running from GDP to electricity
electricity generation, import, export and gross electricity consumption in Turkey. The use of GDP rather than Gross National
demand of Turkey between 1975 and 2008. Ministry of Energy Product (GNP) to forecast electricity demand of a country is more
and Natural Resources (2008) projections on gross electricity suitable since electricity consumption in a country depends on
demand of Turkey by sectors are presented in Table 3. goods and services produced within that particular country.
Gross domestic product (GDP), which is the value of all final Therefore, the authors consider that GDP is the most important
goods and services made within the borders of a nation in a year, parameter to forecast electricity demand/consumption of a
is considered to be the most important determinant for electricity country. It should be noted that GDP values used in this study is
consumption in the literature. Economic growth and its impact on based on purchasing power parity.
living standards is the main driving force of electricity consump- Mahadevan and Asafu-Adjaye (2007) investigated the relation-
tion growth. Empirical studies show that there should be a ship between energy consumption and GDP growth using annual
significant and stable positive correlation between GDP and data from 1971–2002 for twenty countries. Their findings showed
electricity consumption (Lin, 2003). Lise and Montfort (2007) that an increase in GDP growth is associated with an increase in
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
2440 S. Kucukali, K. Baris / Energy Policy 38 (2010) 2438–2445
energy consumption in the long-run. Rahman (1998) had
formulated an econometric energy–economy simulation model
for energy policy studies for a wide range of developing countries.
The variables used in the model were GDP and investment. Also,
the model was used for long-term energy demand forecasting for
India.
Soft computing methods, based on artificial intelligence
technologies to solve complicated practical problems in various
sectors are becoming more and more nowadays, mainly because
of their symbolic reasoning, flexibility and explanation capabil-
ities (Jebaraj and Iniyan, 2006). Michalik et al. (1997) used
linguistic variables and fuzzy logic approach to predict the energy
demand in the residential sector. Sanders et al. (1993) applied
fuzzy theory to the logistical optimization of the supply and
demand sectors.
In this paper fuzzy logic method was employed to forecast the
gross electricity demand of Turkey. The advantage of this method
is: (i) it mimics the human thinking and reasoning, (ii) it can
capture dynamic system behaviors including uncertainties, (iii) it
is based on experience rather than the knowledge of the theory.
This new approach is important since it could have some
implications for policy makers and investors.
2. Historical development of Turkish electric power industry
and politics in Turkey
The first electricity power plant was found in 1902 in
Tarsus, Mersin by a private organization and the first thermal
power plant was built in 1913 in Silahtaraga, Istanbul (Tetas,
2009). In 1935, Etibank, which is a government organization was
found by Law no. 2805 and government started to operate
electricity plants itself. By the support of General Directorate
of Mineral Research and Exploration (MTA), Iller Bank and
State of Hydraulics of Turkey (DSI) many thermal and hydroelec-
tricity plants were connected to the electricity network of the
country.
In First (1963–1967) and Second (1968–1972) Five-year
Development Plan periods, it was proposed as plan target to
combine the actions related to production, transport, distribution
and trading of electricity under a public institution. In this
context, Turkish Electricity Institution (TEK) was founded by Law
no. 1312 in 1970. Full integration in energy sector was completed
by Law no. 2705 by the turnover of electricity facilities of
municipalities to TEK in 1982.
By Fifth (1985–1989) and Sixth (1990–1994) Five-year Devel-
opment Plans, Economical Measures Application Plan and Transi-
tion Plan (1995) TEK was supposed to be privatized. However, by
the decision of Turkish Constitution Court in 1994 it became
impossible to privatize TEK by selling the ownership rights.
Instead, it became possible for private companies to operate the
public electricity institutions by turning over the operating rights.
In this context, as a first application, operating rights of Cayirhan
Thermal Power Plant was turned over to private sector for 20
years.
TEK was reorganized as two separate Public Institution in
1993, namely Turkish Electricity Production A.S (TEAS) and
Turkey Electricity Distribution A.S (TEDAS).
In 2000, restructuring of sector led to make the current
electricity legislation compatible to EU acquis communitaire by
Law no. 4501. In 2001, in the frame of Economical Stability and
Inflation Struggle Program it was proposed to restructure TEAS so
that it could be privatized. In this context, TEAS was restructured
as three separate companies as Turkey Electricity Transmission
A.S (TEIAS), Electricity Production A.S (EUAS) and Turkey
Electricity Trading and Commitment A.S (TETAS).
Turkey has been spending efforts to form a transparent and
competitive energy market structure to meet high demand,
promote investments and increase the efficiency. In accordance
with this target, the publication of Electricity Market Law (Law no.
4628) of March 2001 led to the establishment of Electricity
Market Regulatory Authority. This brings private sector legal
entities to obtain a license granted from this authority to build
and operate a power plant. Moreover, after the publication of
Renewable Energy Law (Law no. 5346) in May 2005, government
guarantees to buy electricity from legal entities with a price of 5.5
hcent/kWh for a duration of ten years. Beside these laws, Natural
Gas Market Law in 2001, Petroleum Market Law in 2003 and LPG
(Liquid Petroleum Gas) Market Law came into force. Law on the
‘‘Utilization of Renewable Sources in Electric Energy Generation’’
and Geothermal Resources and Natural Mineral Waters Law
were published in 2005 and 2007, respectively. The regulation on
‘‘The Utilization of Domestic Coal Reserves in Electricity Genera-
tion’’ was also published in 2007. Finally, in July 2008, Law no.
5784 was published stating that the legal entities are not required
to apply for a license to generate electricity from renewable
energy up to a capacity of 500 kW and government guarantees to
buy the excess electricity. This is expected to bring dynamism to
the electricity market. All laws and regulations published
especially in last decade in Turkey are of high importance for
the integration of Turkey into European Union’s (EU) internal
energy market.
Apart from renewable energy, Turkey is also planning to invest
in nuclear energy between 2015 and 2020 to meet the increasing
energy demand and to reduce the risks resulting from foreign
energy supplies. In this context, Law on ‘‘The Building and
Operation of Nuclear Power Plants and Energy Trade’’ (Law no.
5710) was published in the beginning of 2008. The process of
building nuclear power plants started by the publication of
Turkish Atomic Energy Institution’s (TAEK) criteria at the end of
2007 and TETAS advertised the event to choose the company to
build the nuclear power plant on March, 24th 2008. Only one bid
to build four-unit nuclear power plant having a total installed
capacity of 4800 MW was made on August, 24th 2009. The bid is
still under evaluation.
3. Current economical profile and energy trends of Turkey
When the general structure of the Turkish economy is
considered, we see that at the beginning of 1970s GDP in Turkey
was dominated by the services and agriculture sectors. However,
during the period between 1970 and 2006 the share of agriculture
sector continuously declined from 31% to 11% and share of
industry increased from 18% to 29%. The share of services sector
increased as well but rather slowly from 51 to 60%.
With its rapidly growing population and industrialization in
last decades, Turkey has become one of the largest economies in
the Europe and the world. According to International Monetary
Fund (IMF) Turkey was the world’s 15th largest and Europe’s 6th
largest economy in 2008 with a GDP (based on purchasing power
parity) of 915.4 billion USD. According to OECD (2009), Turkey is
the 11th largest economy with a GDP (based on current prices and
purchasing power parity) of 960.1 billion USD in 2007. Further-
more, annual growth rate of GDP (based on current prices) is 4.3%
for the last two decades in Turkey (IMF, 2009). According to IMF,
after the global crisis encountered in mid-2008, annual economic-
al growth rate in Turkey in 2009 is predicted to be negative
(  5.1%) indicating a recession as expected in most of the
economies in the world. However, it is also predicted that Turkish
economy will recover its growing trend in 2010 but with a lower
percentage (1.5%) this time and this trend is expected to continue
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
S. Kucukali, K. Baris / Energy Policy 38 (2010) 2438–2445
until 2014 with an average annual growth rate of 3.2% (World
Energy Outlook Database, 2009).
Along with the industrialization, although annual growth rate
has been decreasing in last two decades, population of Turkey is
still growing rapidly. According to the data published by Turkish
Statistical Institute annual growth rate of population in Turkey
was 11.8% in 2007 while the rate was 17.2% in 1986 and the total
population was 70.5 million in 2007. Population is projected to
reach 76.5 million in 2015 and 80.2 million in 2020 (Turkstat,
2009).
Economic growth and increase in population, of course,
brought more energy demand in Turkey and this trend is expected
to continue in next decades as projected annual economic growth
rate and population increase imply.
Turkey has quite miscellaneous energy resources including
hard coal, lignite, oil, hydropower, natural gas, geothermal, wood,
animal and plant wastes and solar. However, utilization of these
resources is not adequate to meet the demand of the country.
Furthermore, insufficient government efforts have forced Turkey
to increase its dependence on foreign energy supplies. Instead of
sufficiently promoting the usage of domestic energy resources
and taking necessary precautions government has relied highly on
foreign energy supplies. As a result Turkey has inevitably become
a net energy importing country even though the total installed
capacity has increased from 2234 to 41,744 MW between 1970
and 2008.
Currently, the energy demand of Turkey has been growing
more rapidly than the energy production. According to Electricity
Generation Company of Turkey (EUAS), domestic energy produc-
tion is predicted to be 37.5 and 66.1 mtoe while total energy
consumption is forecasted to be 126.3 and 222.4 mtoe in 2010
and 2020, respectively.
As this is the case, the share of electrical energy within final
energy consumption has been increasing in Turkey. In 2007,
Turkey’s gross electricity consumption increased by 7.9% and
reached to 184.4 TWh and gross electricity generation reached to
191 TWh increasing by 8.7% (TEIAS, 2009a). Guler (2008) stated
that the electricity demand of Turkey is predicted to reach 440.1
and 483.6 TWh by the year 2020 according to low and high-
scenario, respectively. He also reported that in order to meet the
increasing electricity demand current installed capacity of
41,744 MW should at least be doubled to 80,000 MW and
increased to 96,000 MW by the year 2020 according to low and
high-scenario, respectively. In this context, power plant invest-
ments have been started in Turkey for a total installed capacity of
12,600 MW, which includes 1000 MW wind and other renew-
ables, 8100 MW hydraulic and 3500 MW thermal and these plants
are expected to be completed by the year 2013.
The shares of resources in total electricity generation of Turkey
in 2007 were; 49.7% natural gas, 27.9% coal (including hard coal
and lignite), 18.7% hydraulic, 3.4% fuel oil and 0.3% other
renewables. EUAS accounted for 49.3% of total electricity genera-
tion while private sector has a share of 50.7% in 2008 (EUAS,
2009). Among the objectives of the ninth plan (2007–2013) (SPO,
2007) the emphasis was given to the minimization of the
Fuzzification
Input Parameters Fuzzy Sets
Linguistic
expressions
Fig. 2. Schematic of a general fuzzy system.
2441
environmental damages while meeting the energy demand and
efficient use of using at every stage from production to
consumption. Other priorities of the ninth plan were set as:
increasing the privatization of public electricity generation plants
and distribution system, providing a suitable environment for the
private sector to make investments, making necessary changes in
the laws so that public sector will concentrate on its regulative
and auditing roles.
4. Fuzzy logic methodology
Fuzzy logic has become an important tool for a number of
different applications ranging from the control of engineering
systems to business (Cox, 1995; Tanaka and Nimura, 2007). Fuzzy
Algorithm relies on a systematic use of linguistic expressions to
characterize the values of variables and relations between them
(Zadeh, 1965). The fuzzy set A can be defined in the form as
A ¼ fðx1 ; m1 Þ; ðx2 ; m2 Þ; ðx3 ; m3 Þ. . .g ð1Þ
where A is fuzzy set, x the numeric value and m the
membership function varies in the range from 0 to 1. As an
example, let the values of temperature be under consideration
between 0 and 40 1C. Then hot can be defined by a fuzzy set as
follows:
Hot ¼ fð0; 0Þ; ð15; 0:5Þ; ð40; 1Þg ð2Þ
This fuzzy set reflects the point of view that 0 1C is not hot at
all, 15 1C is somewhat hot, and 40 1C is indeed hot. One can think
of membership functions as a technique to formalize empirical
problem solving that is based on the experience rather than the
knowledge of theory.
General fuzzy system, as shown in Fig. 2 has the components
of fuzzification, fuzzy rule base, fuzzy output engine and
defuzzification. During building up a fuzzy model, firstly,
effective (input) parameters should be determined for the
system. Secondly, each of the effective parameter should be
divided into fuzzy sets, that is, classes with sharply defined fuzzy
boundaries in which the transition from membership to non-
membership is gradual rather than abrupt, on the scale from 0 to
1. These fuzzy sets are labeled with linguistic expressions like low,
medium, high, etc., reflecting the variable physical condition
(Fig. 3). In this way, the variable is considered not as a global
quantity, but in partial groups that provide more room for the
justification of sub-relationships between two or more variables
on the basis of fuzzy words.
It should be noted that, algorithm will work reasonably as the
degree of fuzziness is consistent with the data and the natural
behavior of the system. Then, fuzzy rules are written between
these variables in IF–THEN format based on the data and expert
decision. Lastly, results are defuzzified to a specific number as an
output thought to best represent fuzzy set (Fig. 4).
Centroid method, is also known as the center of mass, is
probably the most commonly used defuzzification method
(Ibrahim, 2004). Given a fuzzy set with membership degree m(x)
defined on the interval [b, c] of variable x, the centroid
Fuzzy Rules Defuzzification
Result Output
Relating variables in Transforming result
If-Then format into a numerical value
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
2442 S. Kucukali, K. Baris / Energy Policy 38 (2010) 2438–2445

gh igh
w Hi gh w He gh
Lo m m Hi Lo m Hi
iu iu ium iu
ry w ed Med g h r y ry w ed ed igh ery
Ve Lo M Hi Ve Ve Lo M M H V
1 1

Degree of Membership
Degree of Membership

0
0
100 170 440 600 767 934 1100 0 35 90 130 164 204 245
GDP (billion $) Electricity Demand (TWh)

Fig. 3. Fuzzy subsets for: (a) GDP and (b) electricity demand.

1 1 Input: GDP = 207 billion $

Degree of Membership

Degree of Membership

w
Lo
w ry
Lo Ve
ry
Ve
Rule 1
A1

0 0
100 207 440 600 767 0 40 90 120 160
GDP (billion $) Electricity Demand (TWh)

w w
Lo 1 Lo 1
1
Degree of Membership

Degree of Membership

Degree of Membership

Output

E = 41 TWh
Rule 2

A2 A1 A2

0 0 0
100 207 433 600 767 0 40 80 120 160 0 40 80 120 160
GDP (billion $) Electricity Demand (TWh) Electricity Demand (TWh)

Fig. 4. Example of the fuzzy model computation by using centroid method for GDP= 207 billion $.

defuzzification output xp is defined by 5. Application of fuzzy logic algorithm

Rc
xmðxÞdx In general, fuzzy models were constructed with the aid of data
xp ¼ Rbc ð3Þ
b mðxÞdx
processing and to achieve success in this algorithm, physical
behavior of the system should be known in detail at different
The purpose of defuzzification is to convert the final fuzzy set conditions (Kucukali and Cokgor, 2007). Also, this concept is
representing the overall conclusion into a real number that, in known as expert decision.
some sense, best represents this fuzzy set. More information can Official models to predict energy demand of Turkey imple-
be found about the concepts and operational fuzzy algorithms in mented different methods. MENR have been using Model of
many textbooks (Klir and Fogel, 1988; Kosko, 1992; McNeill and Analysis of the Energy Demand (MAED) since 1984 (Akay and
Thro, 1994; Ibrahim, 2004). Atak, 2007). The SPO econometrically modeled the sectoral energy
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
S. Kucukali, K. Baris / Energy Policy 38 (2010) 2438–2445
demands for different consumer groups. Regression analysis was
utilized to develop mathematical models for each consumer
groups and best models were chosen by comparing correlation
coefficient values. On the other hand, the SIS utilized Durbin–
Watson statistical test to investigate the relationship between
primary energy demand and several demographic and economic
parameters. In both SPO and SIS models the most meaningful
relationship was found between energy demand and GDP (Sahin,
1994; FECT, 1998).
The electricity consumption/demand of a country can be
related to many parameters like business cycles, weather
conditions, prices, demographic parameters and GDP per capita
(EIA, 2009) or economic growth (Seung-Hoo Yoo et al., 2010).
However, it was assessed from the official forecasting models
mentioned above and the literature that GDP appears to be a more
reliable parameter for Turkey. Furthermore, Mahadevan and
Asafu-Adjaye, (2007) stated that energy consumption and GDP
are mutually causative for energy importing countries and
explains these causality in detail. Thus, GDP was selected as input
parameter and energy demand (E) was selected as output
parameter for the fuzzy model used in this study.
GDP is a basic measure of a country’s economic performance. It
should be noted that GDP values used in this study is based on
purchasing power parity. This notification is also considered as
significantly important since GDP can be expressed by constant
prices, current prices and according to purchasing power parity.
For instance, Ediger and Tatlidil (2002) did not find a meaningful
correlation between the energy demand and GDP for the Turkish
case. Although they did not give any reference for GDP data they
used in their study, it is assessed that they used GDP values by
constant prices. Furthermore, there is a confliction between the
usage of the terms GDP and GNP. They stated that according to
the World Bank (2000) Turkey had a GNP of $200.5 billion (1998
US Dollars), ranking 22nd, and a GDP per capita of $3160 ranking
89th in the world in 1998. However, the reference reported these
numbers as GNP and GNP per capita. Moreover, the same
reference defined GNP as ‘‘GNP comprises of gross domestic
product (GDP) plus net receipts of primary income from non-
resident sources’’. Thus, it is not unexpected that they could not
find a relationship.
Single parameter model would make the forecasting more
simple and practical. It is also practical for the policy makers and
investors to use simpler forecasting models. For instance,
Kucukali, in press argued that the energy demand of South Korea
could have been forecasted by selecting a single input parameter,
GDP, rather than selecting four input parameters that were GDP,
population, import, and export amounts. The fuzzy model was
composed of one input (GDP) and one output parameter (energy
consumption) with six fuzzy sets represented by triangles and
trapeziums (for the first and last fuzzy set). This model structure
is commonly used by various researches (Sen and Altunkaynak,
2004; Ibrahim, 2004) and yielded good results. Thus, this model
structure was used in the current study.
Real gross electricity consumption and GDP data used in this
study were obtained from OECD (2009) and IMF (2009),
Table 4
Fuzzy rules written for annual electricity demand.
IF GDP(billion $) THEN Electricity demand (TWh)
Very low Very low
Low Low
Medium Medium
Medium high Medium high
High High
Very high Very high
2443
respectively. Furthermore, projections for 2009–2014 were also
obtained from same sources. The scatter diagram of E–GDP was
used in constructing the fuzzy sets and fuzzy rules. Also the
boundaries of fuzzy sets and the relationship between input and
output variables were determined based on the scatter diagram of
E–GDP. Fuzzy sets are represented by triangles and trapeziums
with the maximum membership degrees as their apexes (Fig. 3).
GDP ranging from 100–1100 billion $ was divided into six fuzzy
sets (Fig. 3a). Additionally, E ranging from 0–245 TWh was also
divided into six subsets as Very low, Low, Medium, Medium high,
High and Very high (Fig. 3b). The ranges of the data were specific
for Turkey electricity demand and the economic structure. Table 4
summarizes the fuzzy rules constructed in this study and there
are a total of six fuzzy rules. For a given input, several IF–THEN
rules could be launched at the same time. Each rule would have a
different strength, because a given input may belong to more than
one fuzzy set, but within different membership values. If Rule 1 is
defined by fuzzy set A1 and Rule 2 by fuzzy set A2, then two sets
are aggregated (commonly using the union operation) leading the
fuzzy set A, as illustrated in Fig. 4. The defuzzification operation is
applied on A to determine the best crisp output.
6. Results and discussion
In the proposed fuzzy logic model, based on the data, E was
linguistically related with GDP, as Zadeh (1965) described the
fuzzy logic method computing with words. Models are run in
MATLAB Fuzzy Logic Toolbox. A clear example is given for how
gross electricity consumption was calculated by the fuzzy logic
algorithm in Fig. 4. In the given example GDP= 207 billion $ was
used as input parameter. The value triggered the Rule 1 and 2. The
combined output fuzzy subset was constructed by taking the sum
of the consequent parts of the Rule 1 and 2. Lastly in
defuzzification process by using the centroid method, the output
value was computed by finding the center of mass of the output
fuzzy subset. For the given example, this value (gross electricity
consumption) was calculated as 41 TWh.
In Fig. 5, Turkey annual electricity consumption values were
plotted against GDP values covering the years between 1980 and
2007. The dependence of gross energy consumption upon GDP
can be seen in this figure. The best fit regression equation yields
E ¼ 0:23GDP3:3 ð4Þ
In order to present visual inspection of the results, Fig. 5 also
shows the actual data scatter with classical regression and fuzzy
approach models. It is obvious that fuzzy model follows the
general trend in the scatter more closely than the regression
solutions. This is because internal uncertainties and system
behavior at different time periods are not taken into account in
the classical regression approach.
As can be seen from Fig. 5, the fuzzy model made good
estimations and captured the system dynamic behavior. The fuzzy
model average absolute relative errors (AREP) were calculated
from Eq. (5) as 4.1% which are less than practically acceptable 10%

n 

1X Epi Emi 
AREP ¼ 100 ð5Þ
ni¼1 Emi
where Ep and Em are the predicted and measured annual
electricity demand values, respectively.
The proposed fuzzy model is sensitive to rapid variations in the
economic performance. In 2001, a big economic crisis occurred in
the country and electricity demand was decreased 1.6% and the
fuzzy model also captured this trend (Table 5). However, in the
previous studies (Akay and Atak, 2007; Hamzacebi, 2007; Ozturk
et al. 2004; Tunc et al., 2006) this situation was not taken into
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
2444 S. Kucukali, K. Baris / Energy Policy 38 (2010) 2438–2445

250

200 Observed Fuzzy Model Regression

E (TWh)
150

100

50

0
0 200 400 600 800 1000
GDP (billion $)

Fig. 5. Comparison of model results with observed values and regression equation.

Table 5
Forecast of annual electricity demand of Turkey by fuzzy logic model and comparison with other methodologies.

Years GDP (billion $) Gross generation (TWh) Fuzzy model (TWh) Regression (TWh) MENR projections (MAED) (TWh)

1980 116 25 27 23 Not available

1981 133 26 27 27 Not available
1982 146 28 27 30 Not available
1983 159 30 27 33 Not available
1984 176 33 30 37 Not available
1985 189 36 35 40 36
1986 207 40 41 44 41
1987 233 45 48 50 45
1988 247 48 52 53 52
1989 257 53 54 55 56
1990 291 57 61 63 62
1991 304 60 64 66 68
1992 330 67 68 72 75
1993 364 73 74 80 83
1994 352 78 72 77 80
1995 385 86 78 85 87
1996 420 95 83 93 95
1997 459 106 105 102 103
1998 478 114 117 106 114
1999 469 118 112 104 124
2000 511 128 129 114 134
2001 494 127 124 110 139
2002 534 133 135 119 151
2003 574 141 143 128 143
2004 659 150 152 148 158
2005 747 161 161 168 160
2006 825 175 180 186 176
2007 886 188 192 200 191
2008 915 198 199 206 206
2009 877a 191b 190 197 224
2010 894 193 201 242
2011 935 206 211 262
2012 982 208 221 284
2013 1036 213 234 306
2014 1093 230 247 330

a
IMF projections (2009–2014).
b
Expected value by the end of November 2009.

account. Instead, they assumed that Turkish annual electricity
demand will grow continuously. Moreover, earlier studies
predicted the annual electricity demand of Turkey by four
model input parameters, which are gross domestic product
(GDP), population, import, and export amounts. As our results
demonstrated the electricity consumption of Turkey could be
forecasted by only using GDP. This would make the model more
simple and practical rather than selecting four input parameters.
All the computed values by fuzzy logic model, regression
equation and MENR forecasts are presented in Table 5. As can
be seen from this table, proposed fuzzy model predicted the
electricity consumption value for the year 2008 as 199 TWh
with a 1% relative error. However, Ministry of Energy and Natural
Resources of Turkey (MENR, 2008) estimated the 2008 electricity
consumption as 206 TWh (Table 3) indicating a 4% higher
value than proposed fuzzy model. This incorrect estimation of
electricity consumption was most probably resulting from the
assumption of 8% continuous annual economic growth rate.
Moreover, MENR (2008) has been using the Model of Analysis of
the Energy Demand (MAED) for the past two decades. Demand
projects of MAED are higher than real values owing to the effects
of government policies and unexpected fluctuations (Akay et al.,
2007). MENR had numerous gross electricity demand forecasts
by MAED since 1984 (1985, 1987, 1988/1, 1988/2, 1990, 1990/2,
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
S. Kucukali, K. Baris / Energy Policy 38 (2010) 2438–2445
1993, 1996, 2000, 2002/1, 2002/2 and 2004). The data for MENR
forecasts presented in Table 5 is composed of the best forecasts
among the whole forecast set (TEIAS, 2009b).
Furthermore, forecasting effectiveness of all methodo-
logies were analyzed by average absolute relative error. Average
absolute relative errors of these methodologies were calculated as
3.9, 5.3 and 7.3% for fuzzy logic method, MENR (2008) and
regression equation, respectively. This validates that the fuzzy
model prediction performance is better than the regression
equation and MENR (2008).
The data in this study indicated that the electricity consump-
tion is closely related with the economic performance of a
country. Hence, a downtrend is expected for the year 2009
because of the global financial crisis. Based on TEIAS (2009a) data,
Turkey’s electricity consumption decreased 4% in the first eleven
months of 2009 as compared to the same period last year. This
issue was also addressed in the fuzzy model (Table 5).
7. Conclusions
The paper develops a fuzzy logic electricity demand model for
Turkey. As the results demonstrated the electricity demand is
strongly related with the GDP and one parameter is capable for
the model projections. The main conclusions of the paper are:
(i) As 2001 experience showed, the electricity demand of Turkey
will not grow continuously with an annual rate of 8%. The
results indicate that the electricity demand growth mainly
reflects the changing expectations of GDP. So, forecasting the
Turkey’s electricity consumption with the country’s econom-
ic performance in the short-term will be more meaningful
and it would provide more reliable data for the policy makers
and investors.
(ii) Based on the model, there would be a breakdown in
electricity demand of Turkey in 2009 because of the global
financial crisis encountered in 2008. In the model it is
estimated that the gross electricity demand will decrease
from 199 to 190 TWh in the year 2009 contradicting most of
the former forecasts including that of Turkish Ministry of
Energy and Natural Resources. The electricity consumption
data for eleven months of 2009 are in agreement with the
proposed prediction.
(iii) The electricity consumption growth rates are projected to be
about 4% between 2010 and 2014. To meet the forecasted
consumption, the total installed capacity increment is
estimated to be 30 TWh.
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