Turkey plans to spur local companies to make wind turbines to curb imports that may cost $20 billion over 20 years, its main scientific research agency said.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan supports legal changes on state purchasing to allow the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey, or Tubitak, to set up companies and spur technology transfers, Chairman Yucel Altunbasak said. The agency wants to take stakes in startups, and may give Turkish manufacturers research and technical assistance, he said.
“There are legal problems with Tubitak forming commercial ventures or companies and we’re working on overcoming them,” he said today in Ankara. Tubitak is also supporting development of local auto, aviation, missile and radar technology, he said.
Turkey is seeking to cut a current-account deficit of about 10 percent of gross domestic product by reducing its dependence on imported energy and encouraging local manufacturing output.
To contact the reporter on this story: Ali Berat Meric in Ankara at americ@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew J. Barden at barden@bloomberg.net
via Turkey Plans to Support Domestic Production of Wind Turbines – Bloomberg.
Turkey has used wind energy for more than ten years now, but never from locally developed and produced wind turbines. That’s about to change.
In what Turkish newspapers are calling “the biggest project in the history of the republic,” the Turkish government recently announced the country’s first National Wind Energy System. The project, which is led by a team of experts from top Turkish universities and scientific unions, has been ongoing — in secret — for the past two and a half years.
Late next year, expect the unveiling of the first stage in this ambitious energy project: a 500-KW wind turbine built entirely locally, using only parts produced in Turkey.
Moving quickly
By 2014, the government expects to follow up this 500-KW model with a 2,500-KW wind turbine, also completely locally produced. While these two turbines will constitute a 3-MW drop in the bucket of Turkey’s approximately 1,500-MW installed wind capacity, they indicate that the government is serious about laying the foundation for a local wind energy infrastructure in the country.
The National Wind Energy System has cost TRY 50 million ($27 million) so far. Over the next five years, the Turkish government hopes the System will “match the automotive industry’s contribution to to the country’s economy.” By using entirely locally sourced machinery and labor, the System will also bring Turkey closer to its goal of energy independence.
Turkish energy officials have previously declared that they expect wind capacity to reach 5,000 MW by 2015 and an astounding 20,000 MW by 2023 (Turkey’s centennial). The government expects the latter goal to require $30 billion in investment capital, of which it hopes to procure $7.5 billion locally.
Great Potential
If Turkey can manage to meet its ambitious goals, it will join European countries such as Spain and Germany in the ranks of the top wind energy-users worldwide. With 90,000 MW of potential wind capacity, the biggest mystery is why Turkey hasn’t yet harnessed more than 2 percent of it.
Efforts to spur local investment in wind power before now were hindered in Turkey by a botched auction of tenders for wind project licenses in 2008. In that year, Turkey’s Energy Market Regulatory Authority awarded 80,000 MW-worth of tenders that overlapped at grid connection points, requiring the whole set to be re-auctioned.
Hopefully, the National Wind Energy System marks the government’s serious intent to realize a large-scale wind industry in Turkey. The country’s actual installed wind capacity in 2015, however, will be the best indicator of its success.
via Local Wind Energy Industry Emerges In Turkey | Green Prophet.
NEW YORK & EZINE, Turkey, Jun 21, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Turkey’s newest wind farm — the first owned by a joint venture of GAMA Holding A.S. and GE unit GE Energy Financial Services — is now selling clean electricity and helping the country meet its renewable energy generation targets, the companies announced today at an American Council on Renewable Energy conference in New York.
Editor's Note: Shown here are the GE 2.5-megawatt turbines at the Sares wind farm in Turkey. The wind farm — owned by a joint venture between GAMA Holding A.S. and GE Energy Financial Services — has begun selling its power to the electric grid.
The 22.5-megawatt Sares wind farm, located in one of Turkey’s most extreme wind regions near the city of Canakkale in the Ezine Region near the northwest coast, uses nine GE 2.5-megawatt turbines, some of the most advanced in GE’s fleet in efficiency, reliability and grid connection capabilities. Turkey’s Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources approved commercial operation of the Sares wind farm, the first in Turkey owned by Ankara-based GAMA Enerji A.S., the joint venture of GEEFS and GAMA Holding.
“As a global investor, we are delighted to expand our renewable energy investing to Turkey, particularly using GE’s state-of-the-art turbines, to help the country meet its energy and environmental needs with a sustainable, efficient energy source like wind,” Kevin Walsh, a managing director and leader of Power and Renewable Energy at GE Energy Financial Services, said at the American Council on Renewable Energy’s Renewable Energy Finance Forum-Wall Street.
Added Stephan Ritter, general manager of GE Renewables Europe: “The Turkish market’s potential for the wind business is very big. To realize that potential, we are committed to working with wind developers such as GAMA Enerji. 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 the 10-megawatt Karadag wind farm, 350 kilometers south of Sares. Project construction, also using GE’s 2.5-megawatt turbines, is expected to start in the third quarter of this year, with completion expected in the second quarter of next year. While GAMA Enerji has invested in the Sares and Karadag projects, GE Energy will maintain them under a services agreement, and GAMA Enerji will operate them.
GAMA Enerji Managing Director Semih Ergur said: “These wind farms not only support a cleaner environment but create jobs, support our company’s growth and help Turkey achieve its renewable energy goals.”
GAMA Enerji estimates that 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.
GE’s 2.5-megawatt wind turbines are used at two of the world’s largest wind projects: CEZ Romania’s 600-megawatt Fantanele wind farm, Europe’s largest onshore project; and the 845-megawatt Shepherds Flats wind project, the world’s largest wind farm, under construction in the US state of Oregon that is co-owned by GE Energy Financial Services, Caithness Energy, Google and subsidiaries of ITOCHU Corporation and Sumitomo Corporation. This machine is designed to yield the highest annual energy production in its class and builds on the success of GE’s 1.5-megawatt wind turbine, the world’s most widely deployed wind turbine, with more than 16,000 now installed.
About GAMA
GAMA was established in Turkey in 1959 and has become a leading international general contractor with operations in 20 countries extending from Ireland in the west to Russia’s Sakhalin Island in the east. GAMA Group Companies presently have contracts in 12 countries valued about USD $6.5 billion and a workforce of 14,000 employees. Besides serving as an EPC supplier of power plants and a general contractor of industrial facilities, GAMA’s core business includes energy investments, managed by its joint venture company GAMA Enerji A.S. For further information, please visit www.GAMA.com.tr
About GAMA Enerji A.S.
The experience of GAMA in the energy and water sectors resulted in the establishment of GAMA Enerji. GAMA has taken part in the construction and development of 14,500 megawatts of power generation capacity worldwide (which corresponds to approximately 30% of the installed generation capacity in Turkey). GAMA owns equity in projects with a total installed capacity of 1607 MW. GAMA was an active participant in Turkey’s first major Build Operate Transfer projects as contractor and investor. GAMA Enerji has invested in water treatment and conveyance projects with a capacity of 140 MCM/year and intends to continue these investments with another substantial water project in Jordan. It has invested in power plants, including in Ireland. GAMA Enerji develops renewable hydroelectric and wind energy projects as well as larger thermal power plants. For more information, visit www.GAMA.com.tr/energy/
About GE
GE is an advanced technology, services and finance company taking on the world’s toughest challenges. Dedicated to innovation in energy, health, transportation and infrastructure, GE operates in more than 100 countries and employs about 300,000 people worldwide. GE has been active in Turkey for more than 60 years, growing through strong partnerships and technology investments in infrastructure segments such as Aviation, Energy and Transportation. For more information, visit the company’s website at www.ge.com .
GE serves the energy sector by developing and deploying technology that helps make efficient use of natural resources. With more than 90,000 global employees and 2010 revenues of $38 billion, GE Energy www.ge.com/energy is one of the world’s leading suppliers of power generation and energy delivery technologies. The businesses that comprise GE Energy – GE Power & Water, GE Energy Services and GE Oil & Gas – work together to provide integrated product and service solutions in all areas of the energy industry including coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear energy; renewable resources such as water, wind, solar and biogas; and other alternative fuels.
GE Energy Financial Services’ experts invest globally across the capital spectrum in essential, long-lived, and capital-intensive energy assets that meet the world’s energy needs. In addition to capital, GE Energy Financial Services offers the best of GE’s technical know-how, technology innovation, financial strength, and rigorous risk management. Based in Stamford, Connecticut, USA, the GE business unit helps its customers and GE grow through new investments, strong partnerships, and optimization of its US $21 billion in assets. For more information, visit .
Editor’s Note: Shown here are the GE 2.5-megawatt turbines at the Sares wind farm in Turkey. The wind farm — owned by a joint venture between GAMA Holding A.S. and GE Energy Financial Services — has begun selling its power to the electric grid.
Turkey’s energy regulator may give final licenses for 2,277 megawatts of new wind-power plants, subject to environment assessment reports, Hasan Koktas, head of the Ankara-based agency said.
The regulator rejected applications for 15,360 megawatts of wind-power licenses and is studying 23,300 megawatts more for preliminary licensing, Koktas said in a press release distributed ahead of an energy conference in Istanbul today. Wind farm licenses approved by the agency total 5,000 megawatts so far, including 1,406 megawatts in operation, he said.
The agency asked the central bank and banking regulator to ease lending restrictions for energy projects as it estimates Turkey’s annual energy demand rising an average 6.3 percent in the next 20 years, Koktas said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Ercan Ersoy in Istanbul at eersoy@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Aydan Eksin at aeksin@bloomberg.net
via Turkey May Give 2,277 MW New Wind Power Licenses, Regulator Says – Bloomberg.
The design for a hybrid electric plant that makes steam from natural gas and from solar power, supplemented by wind machines.General ElectricA hybrid electric plant designed by General Electric. Mirrors focus sunlight on power towers, top right, that make steam that is injected through pipes into a turbine,center, to make electricity. Wind turbines, rear, make electricity to either help run the plant or to feed the grid.
General ElectricA hybrid electric plant designed by General Electric. Mirrors focus sunlight on power towers, top right, that make steam that is injected through pipes into a turbine,center, to make electricity. Wind turbines, rear, make electricity to either help run the plant or to feed the grid.
Green: Business
How can the electric system take intermittent energy sources like wind and sun and integrate them with conventional fuels for electricity, like natural gas?
General Electric and a small California company called eSolar announced a new strategy on Tuesday: use the solar power to make steam that will supplement the steam from the natural gas. And tack on some wind machines nearby, in an arrangement that lets the natural gas compensate for variations in the wind and sun.
The technology turns a natural gas plant and a solar plant into conjoined twins; wind is more like a half-sibling.
The two companies said they would break ground this year on a hybrid electric plant in Karaman, Turkey, to be owned by a Turkish project developer called MetCap Energy Investments. Part of it will look like a conventional combined-cycle gas plant, in which the natural gas is burned in a jet engine that drives a generator, and the exhaust gases are used to make steam to turn a steam turbine that also drives a generator.
But standing nearby is a 250-foot tower surrounded by about 25,000 mirrors, each about the size of a big flat-screen television. Computers keep the mirrors focused on the tower, and inside the tower, water is boiled into steam. The steam flows into the turbine along with steam from the natural gas plant.
In broad outline, using the sun to boil water into steam and supplementing that with natural gas is not new. But most such projects use parabolic troughs with black pipes running down the center. The tower design allows steam to be heated to temperatures 200 degrees higher than the troughs, which means that the system will produce far more electricity per acre.
The design is rather modest on the renewables side; the plan is for 450 megawatts of natural gas, 50 megawatts of solar power and 22 megawatts of wind power. But Turkey grants a subsidy equal to 10 euro cents a kilowatt-hour for renewable power, said Paul Browning, president and chief executive of the thermal products division of GE Energy.
“There are some savings from the control system, the switch yard, some of the interconnections,”’ Mr. Browning added. G.E. is boasting that the plant will be 69 percent efficient, a phenomenally high number. Most natural gas plants have an efficiency ranging from 30 to 50 percent.
GE calculates the figure by counting the sun and wind at zero, as a kind of hamburger helper for the natural gas. The calculation ignores the wind and sun that does not get converted to electricity, but on the other hand, the wind and sun are inexhaustible.
The design is based on a new model of G.E. natural gas plant called FlexEfficiency that is able to vary its output rapidly to make it a good dance partner for variable sources like wind and sun.
Mr. Browning said a customer that was considering supplementing natural gas with solar power would have to weigh the cost of gas, the cost of capital and the available incentives. “Gas in the U.S. is very cheap right now, and the renewable incentives in the U.S. are — let’s call them inconsistent and difficult to project into future,” he said. The price of natural gas in Turkey is more than double the price in the United Sates, he said.
The Turkish plant will be in commercial operation by 2015, he said. Future plants could have a higher proportion of solar energy, depending on market conditions, he said.
The California company eSolar operates two power towers on the edge of the Mojave Desert. Last year it received an $11 million grant from the Energy Department to work on the design of a system that would heat molten salt rather than water. The salt stores heat that can be turned into electricity during periods of clouds or darkness, said John Van Scoter, the company’s chief executive and president.
At the Turkish plant, there is no need for storage; the solar part will run when there is sunshine, and be replaced by gas when there is no sun.
via A Hybrid Power Plant Takes Shape in Turkey – NYTimes.com.
Vestas has received a wind power order for delivery of 36 x 2 MW wind turbines for a wind farm in Turkey.
Wind energy Vestas receives order for 72 MW in Turkey
With reference to Vestas Wind Systems A/S’ company announcement No. 20/2011 of 11 May 2011, Vestas has received through Aksu Temiz Enerji Elektrik Üretim Sanayi ve Ticaret Anonim ªirketi an order from Ayen Energy for delivery of 36 units of the 2 MW platform turbines for the Aksu wind power plant to be installed in the city of Kayseri, Turkey.
The order comprises supply, installation on-site and commissioning of the turbines, a VestasOnline® Business SCADA system, as well as a seven-year service agreement including the Active Output Management package ‘AOM 4000’. The AOM 4000 is a full-scope service contract, consisting of scheduled and unscheduled maintenance and consumables, which offers solid risk management for customers, who want an availability guarantee measured against an agreed threshold. This type of contract offers customers assured performance avoiding unforeseen operational costs of any kind.
Delivery of the turbines is scheduled to start in Q2 2011 and the project is expected to be completed in Q4 2011.
The order has been placed by Aksu Temiz Enerji Elektrik Üretim Sanayi ve Ticaret Anonim ªirketi, a subsidiary of Ayen Energy, which has installed hydroelectric power plants and a natural gas plant. In addition, Ayen Energy has already built one wind power plant, and is currently in the process of constructing two others; the three of them represent a total wind capacity of more than 80 MW.
Fahrettin Amir Arman, Board Member states: “We consider that Vestas has the proven technology able to meet the requirements of the Aksu project and that they are the wind turbine supplier and service provider which best can meet our needs. We are currently diversifying the energy portfolio of our company, and we see wind energy as a competitive, sustainable and complementary energy source. This 72 MW project, which will be the largest wind power plant we have installed so far, is an important step towards the diversification of our energy investments. We look forward to working together with Vestas, the global wind technology leader, on this project.”
“We are extremely pleased that Ayen Energy has selected Vestas as preferred supplier for their largest wind investment, the Aksu project. Having been selected on the grounds of our solid experience, global track record and technological leadership, we hope that this project will lay the foundations for a long-lasting collaboration between the two companies,” expresses Ali Neyzi, Vice President of Vestas Türkiye.
“The Aksu project directly supports Vestas’ vision: ‘Wind, Oil and Gas’. Ayen Energy’s investment in wind power is a good example of how energy companies around the world are diversifying their energy portfolio. Moreover, it shows the important role that wind can play going forward in Turkey and other parts of the world, as an energy source on a par with more traditional energy sources,” concludes Juan Araluce, President of Vestas Mediterranean.
The Aksu wind power plant has an estimated annual production of 205,000 MWh per year, which corresponds to an annual emission saving of around 98,000 tons of CO2 emissions. Furthermore, it will provide enough electricity to cover the residential electricity consumption of almost 415,000 people in Turkey.
Vestas Mediterranean is one of the seven Sales Business Units in the Vestas Group and it manages all sales, construction and service operations in the countries of the Mediterranean region, Middle East, Latin America, Caribbean as well as approximately 70 per cent of the African continent. As of 31 December 2010, this sales business unit delivered cumulative capacity close to 10 GW, representing 22.5 per cent of Vestas’ global capacity and had a workforce of 3,000 highly skilled and fully committed employees in the Mediterranean area. In the past three years, Vestas Mediterranean has accounted for approximately 35 per cent of the global sales in the Vestas Group.
Vestas has been operating in Turkey since 1984 when it installed its first turbine. In January 2008, Vestas established an office in Istanbul, Vestas Türkiye, which is responsible for all sales, construction, service and maintenance operations in Turkey and the Middle East. All Vestas Türkiye’s activities have been certified by ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 – the international standards for the quality, environment and occupational health and safety. As of 31 December 2010, Vestas has delivered 375.91 MW in Turkey.
via REVE – Regulación Eólica con Vehículos Eléctricos -.
