Turkey has invested 27 billion Turkish liras ($3.6 billion) on natural gas distribution since 2002, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday.

"Since the day we took office, investment in natural gas distribution across Turkey has reached a total of 27 billion Turkish liras," Erdogan said via video link at the opening ceremony of multiple energy and natural resources facilities.

“Today, 54.5 million citizens benefit from the comfort of natural gas. The total population reached by natural gas is 68 million,” he added.

Turkey aims to establish an energy sector based on local resources as much as possible, the president said.

He went on to say that Turkey's power generation has been tripled over the past 18 years to reach 96,000 megawatts.

“Today, 63% of our installed power consists of domestic resources. 51.7% of it belongs to renewable energy resources. So clean energy,” Erdogan added.

He said Turkey’s geothermal power generation, which was only 18 megawatts in 2002, has now reached 1,613 megawatts, adding that with this figure, Turkey ranks first in Europe and fourth in the world in terms of geothermal.

"We aim to be the central country not only in production but also in renewable energy technologies," the president added..aa