Turkey taps into big wind-energy potential
Turkey’s newest wind farm is now selling clean energy into the country’s power grid.
The 22.5-megawatt Sares wind farm is jointly owned by GE Energy Financial Services and GAMA Holding, a Turkish general contracting firm. The installation, which uses nine E 2.5-megawatt turbines, is located in one of Turkey’s most extreme wind regions near the city of Canakkale near the northwest coast.
“The Turkish market’s potential for the wind business is very big,” said Stephan Ritter, general manager of GE Renewables Europe. “As our most advanced installed wind turbine in efficiency, reliability and grid connection capabilities, the 2.5-megawatt series is an excellent match for a region with such extreme wind conditions.”
The GE-GAMA joint venture is also developing a 10-megawatt wind farm, Karadag, around 350 kilometers south of Sares. Construction on the project is expected to start in the third quarter of 2011, with completion expected in the second quarter of 2012.
According to GAMA Enerji, the two wind farms will generate enough electricity to power 59,000 average Turkish homes and avoid 80,000 tons a year in greenhouse gas emissions. Turkey’s Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources aims to generate 20 percent of the country’s electricity from renewable resources by 2020.
