Türkiye’s Energy-Efficient Buildings Bring Savings, Security, Better Lives

Leaky windows. Thin insulation. Outdated heating and cooling systems. Around the world, buildings bleed energy—inflating demand and leading to costly electricity and gas bills for homes, businesses, hospitals, and schools. 

In energy-importing countries like Türkiye, this inefficiency also exposes government budgets to global supply and price shocks. The country’s building sector alone represents about one-third of Türkiye’s total energy consumption, much of it directly from coal and natural gas. That’s why enhancing buildings’ energy efficiency and investing in renewables like solar are central to the country’s ambitious plans to achieve energy security and reduce harmful emissions.

The World Bank-funded Türkiye Energy Efficiency in Public Buildings project is helping curb energy consumption by renovating and retrofitting central government buildings, including offices, hospitals and schools across the country. The results have exceeded expectations: in the over 370 buildings that have been retrofitted, energy use has fallen by an average of 40%, more than double the project’s initial goal. As of September 2025, about 165,000 people who rely on these buildings are benefiting from greater comfort.

Warmer Classrooms, Brighter Futures

Ortaköy 80th Year Vocational and Technical Anatolian High School, on the outskirts of Ankara, stands as a proud testament of the project’s impact. Energy efficiency measures, undertaken in 2021, included the installation of larger triple-paned windows, enhanced roof and wall insulation, LED lighting, an upgraded heating system, and solar panels to generate clean energy. These efforts have enabled these facilities serving roughly 500 students aged 14-18 years old to reduce electricity consumption from the national grid by 60-70%.

The upgrades are not only saving the school money, but impacting learning. “Before this project, the temperatures inside the classrooms were very low. Even if we turned the radiators to the highest level, the classrooms wouldn’t heat up. There was absenteeism. Some students had to repeat a grade or even drop out because of these reasons,” stressed Levent Hıdır, the school’s deputy headmaster. “Now those numbers have decreased. Our classrooms are warm inside. Their comfort has increased, and students come more willingly.”

The new insulation and window panes are also helping reduce noisy distractions. 

Hospital Energy Savings Improve Care

At the Kandira State Hospital in Kocaeli province, energy efficiency measures have significantly reduced the energy consumption and carbon footprint of the 52-bed medical facility, which serves a community of over 60,000 people in northwestern Türkiye. With World Bank funding, the hospital has invested in new energy-efficient heating and cooling systems, replaced more than 1,000 fluorescent lights with LED lighting, and installed over 400 solar panels to generate clean energy. 

Since these upgrades were implemented nearly a year ago, energy consumption has fallen by 30%, eliminating 420 tonnes of carbon emissions. 

“We’ve achieved substantial savings in our energy costs—savings that we are able to use for other expenses such as medicines and cleaning services. In a country dependent on energy, the 30% savings we achieved here are extremely valuable to us,” said Financial Affairs Director Gürol Aydemir. 

Moreover, these changes have made the hospital brighter, more inviting, and comfortable, which is critical for creating an environment for healing and recuperation. “Our old fluorescent lighting systems consumed a lot of energy but provided little light and caused considerable noise pollution. People used to complain about this,” asserted Chief Physician Dr. Bülent Uysal. “Since the entire hospital has been converted to LED lighting we have received no such complaints.”

A Scalable Vision for the Future

Building on the success of this project, the Government of Türkiye is now scaling up its efforts to renovate its entire public building stock—around half a million buildings. The estimated investment of $8.8 billion will require participation from both donors and the private sector, further reinforcing Türkiye’s commitment to energy security.

Scaling up will also create significant job opportunities. The first phase of the program already provided technical training to more than 3,500 people, helping build a skilled workforce for jobs in energy services and construction. Expanding to hundreds of thousands of buildings will multiply these opportunities and the impact they have on communities across the country.

“In line with our net-zero target for 2053, the government initially set a goal to reduce energy consumption in public buildings by 15% by 2030. This was later revised to 30%, and we now see that with proper energy efficiency measures, savings of up to 40% are possible,” said Esra Turan Tombak, Head of the Department of Foreign-Funded Investments at the Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change, and Director of the World Bank–funded energy efficiency projects.