The Contribution of Renewable Energy Resources to the Economic Growth in Turkey and Opportunities for the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Energy is the basis of all sectors of modern economies and the baseline for all our economic activities (Atems and Hotaling, 2018). Although the role of energy in economic production is increasing day by day little or no emphasis has been placed on the role of energy or other sources to facilitate the economic growth in the mainstream economic growth theories. Mainstream economists have generally assumed capital, labor and land as the main factors of production and they have considered fuel and materials for energy as intermediate input (Stern, 2004). However, recently, while new growth theories are emphasizing the role of technological changes in economic growth, they also strongly agree with the idea that innovation is a driving force of efficiency (Zafar et al.,2018). Due to the increase in energy costs, the dependence on foreign energy sources and pressure towards decreasing greenhouse emissions more attention is paid to the renewable energy sources with each passing day (Payne, 2009). In the recent years the production of renewable energy sources has been encouraged by subsidies financed by the government and other supports like tax reduction, and in this way renewable energy production costs have dropped which caused the renewable energy to be able to compete with traditional energy in many countries (Koçak and Şarkgüneşi, 2017).