Today is the second day of the 4th Annual Wind Power Conference, taking place in Istanbul, Turkey. A number of people have said “why Turkey?” Well, for the clever investor, Turkey represents a real jewel in terms of wind power development.
For starters, its economy is growing, something to be noted in comparison with Europe and the United States in the current global climate. As with many growing economies, Turkey needs power. No less than 50GW needs to come online in the next 8 years. Renewables are going to be an very important part of that power production.
The Government are fully behind renewable energy; there are feed in tariffs in place offering incentives for local manufacturing and installation of turbines- in many cases in excess of those available in Europe and in tax concessions in the US, backed by 10 year purchase or renewable energy agreements. The tariff is guaranteed for wind farms that have started producing energy by December 2015. The time to invest is now.
Finally, Turkey is no stranger to wind power- the country has 2GW of installed power already and has a wind resource estimated at 90GW. Wind power boasts the second highest share of renewable energy production in Turkey; wind energy now amounts to 2% of total power generation in Turkey.
Vestas is heavily involved in supporting the Conference. It has a strong presence and set-up in the Mediterranean region and has installed more than 10.000 MW in the area- over one fifth of Vestas’ total global capacity.
This Summer, GEC, the US’ biggest manufacturer of wind turbines completed its second wind farm project in Turkey with Gama Holding AS. The 10-megawatt Karadag farm in Izmir started generating electricity in July using four turbines, each with a 2.5- megawatt capacity. GE and Ankara-based contractor group Gama, through their Gama Enerji AS venture, started producing power at their first wind farm, the 22.5-megawatt Sares facility, in March 2011.
Turkey is seeking to get 30 percent of its power from renewables by 2023- and that will be a hot topic on the agenda at today’s conference.
