The Energy and Natural Resources Ministry is preparing for a historic contracting process in wind after solar power.
For the second project of the Renewable Energy Resource Areas (YEKA) strategy, the world's largest wind turbine manufacturers will submit their first bids Thursday for a 1000-megawatt plant. The said bidding will be held in August in an open auction and is expected to be attended by many domestic and foreign investors.
Elaborating on the bidding, Energy and Natural Resources Minister Berat Albayrak said the project will provide a great advantage for investors around the world in terms of access to the growing and dynamic Turkish market, as well as other markets developing in this region with great potential for the near future.
"Thanks to this advantage we provide companies as Turkey, we will become the production base in both solar and wind technology fields," Albayrak said.
The YEKA strategy ordered by Albayrak aims for direct technology transfer. With a model designed to reduce external dependency and the current account deficit, not only in energy, but also in the field of energy technologies, the energy areas will be put out to tender on the conditions of establishing factories, producing with a locality rate of 65 percent, employing domestic engineers at a rate of 80 percent and conducting research and development (R&D) activities. Even though Turkey has been recently attracting factory investments in wind turbine wing and tower production, the capacity of these two areas has been limited to assembly. With the YEKA contract, domestic production will also be provided for the first time in the field of technology.
Accordingly, the winning company will realize a factory investment to produce wind turbines with an investment of over $100 million with a locality rate of 65 percent. An average of 300 to 450 domestic wind turbines will be produced in the plant, at least at 2.3 megawatts of power. The factory to produce domestic wind turbines to be installed at YEKA will have a production capacity of at least 150 units per year or 400 megawatts per year wind turbine in a single shift. The factory will be builtwithin 21 months from the date of the signing of contract. R&D activities will be carried out by Turkish engineers and universities in the field of wind technology. Accordingly, the obligation to employ domestic engineers at a rate of 80 percent also attracted attention as one of the requirements of the tender.
The company to win the wind YEKA tender will invest over $1 billion in the facilities. With the activation of the domestic Wind Power Plants (WPP), a minimum of 3 billion kilowatt hours of electricity will be generated every year, therefore providing the annual energy need of 1.1 million households. Thus, Turkey will undertake one of the biggest projects in the world in the wind power with 1,000 megawatts. Thanks to the wind facilities to be established, an average reduction of 1.5 million tons of yearly carbon dioxide emissions will be achieved.
The winning company will transform Turkey into a technology production center in the field of wind turbines. It will also carry out R&D activities with 50 technical staff consisting of Turkish engineers at 80 percent for 10 years in at least three of the five areas in total, including wing, generator design, material technologies, production techniques, software and innovative transmission. The said company will allocate $5 million for these activities every year. Considering the establishment and operation of the plant and the WPPs, as well as the R&D activities, the wind YEKA will provide employment for approximately 3,750 people.