Wind power installed capacity and generation in Turkey

Wind power Wind power is the use of wind energy to generate useful work. Historically, wind power was used by sails, windmills and windpumps, but today it is mostly used to generate electricity. This article deals only with wind power for electricity ge ...

generates about 10% of

Turkey's electricity Turkey uses more electricity per person than the global average, but less than the European average, with demand peaking in summer due to air conditioning. Most electricity is generated from coal, gas and hydropower, with hydroelectricity from ...

, mainly in the west in the Aegean and Marmara regions, and is gradually becoming a larger share of renewable energy in the country. , Turkey has over 13

gigawatts The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named in honor o ...

(GW) of

wind turbine A wind turbine is a device that wind power, converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. , hundreds of thousands of list of most powerful wind turbines, large turbines, in installations known as wind farms, were generating over ...

s. The Energy Ministry plans to have almost 30 GW by 2035, including 5 GW offshore. The state-owned Electricity Generation Company (EÜAŞ) has about 20% of the market, and there are many private companies. The highest ever daily share of wind power was 25%, in 2022. Building new wind farms is cheaper than running existing coal plants which depend on imported

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal i ...

. According to modelling by

Carbon Tracker Carbon Tracker is a London-based not-for-profit think tank researching the impact of climate change on financial markets. Carbon Tracker popularized the notion of a carbon bubble, which describes the incompatibility between the continued deve ...

, new wind will be cheaper than all existing coal plants by 2027.

History

Some of the earliest windmills were built 400 years ago out of stone. Using wind from the

Aegean Sea The Aegean Sea is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea between Europe and Asia. It is located between the Balkans and Anatolia, and covers an area of some . In the north, the Aegean is connected to the Marmara Sea, which in turn con ...

, these mills were used to grind wheat into flour until the 1970s. On windy days a mill could grind 20 sacks of wheat (about 320 kg) in an hour, and corn and barley were also milled. Such historic windmills on the Bodrum Peninsula are being restored for

tourism Tourism is travel for pleasure, and the Commerce, commercial activity of providing and supporting such travel. World Tourism Organization, UN Tourism defines tourism more generally, in terms which go "beyond the common perception of tourism as ...

. Likewise, on Bozcaada, two derelict mills have been reconstructed and are used for tourist demonstrations. The first

wind farm A wind farm, also called a wind park or wind power plant, is a group of wind turbines in the same location used to produce electricity. Wind farms vary in size from a small number of turbines to several hundred wind turbines covering an exten ...

was built in

İzmir İzmir is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, third most populous city in Turkey, after Istanbul and Ankara. It is on the Aegean Sea, Aegean coast of Anatolia, and is the capital of İzmir Province. In 2024, the city of İzmir had ...

in 1998. While the installed capacity of

wind power Wind power is the use of wind energy to generate useful work. Historically, wind power was used by sails, windmills and windpumps, but today it is mostly used to generate electricity. This article deals only with wind power for electricity ge ...

was 19

megawatts The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named in honor o ...

(MW) in 2006, it grew to 140 MW by 2007, and to over 1,600 MW by 2011. In the 2010s some windpower was used for

carbon offset Carbon offsetting is a carbon trading mechanism that enables entities to compensate for offset greenhouse gas emissions by investing in projects that reduce, avoid, or remove emissions elsewhere. When an entity invests in a carbon offsetting ...

s. A

factory was completed in 2019, also in İzmir. In 2020 1.6 billion euros were invested in wind power. Hybrid generation became more popular in the early 2020s.

Wind farms

There are about 300 wind farms in Turkey, all onshore, totalling about 4,000 wind turbines. Total installed capacity is 12 GW as of 2024, and

capacity factor The net capacity factor is the unitless ratio of actual electrical energy output over a given period of time to the theoretical maximum electrical energy output over that period. The theoretical maximum energy output of a given installation is def ...

is around 33%. The company with the most wind power is Borusan EnBW Enerji, a joint venture between Borusan and Germany power utility Energie Baden-Wurttemberg. The maximum power of unlicensed installations is 5 MW. One billion euros was invested in 2021 and 1.4 GW built: average power rating was over 5 GW, which was higher than other European countries onshore. the largest wind farm in the country is Soma, followed by Karaburun.

Aliağa Wind Farm

Bahçe Wind Farm

Çanta Wind Farm

Dağpazarı Wind Farm

Mut Wind Farm

Şamlı Wind Farm

Soma Wind Farm

Planned and under construction

In 2022 contracts for 20 wind farms totalling 850 MW were auctioned at prices from 408

lira Lira is the name of several currency units. It is the current Turkish lira, currency of Turkey and also the local name of the Lebanese pound, currencies of Lebanon and of Syrian pound, Syria. It is also the name of several former currencies, ...

(USD 24/EUR 22) to 778 lira per MWh. However the government target of 20 GW by 2023 was not met. The government published a long-term National Energy Plan in 2023 which targets almost 30 GW by 2035.

Onshore wind potential

The Energy Ministry estimates onshore potential as 48 GW at 50 m altitude in places with wind speed over 7.5 m/s: the estimate assumes 5 MW capacity turbines. The north-west is the windiest, averaging about 7 m/s at 50 m high, and has the most wind farms. Mountain ranges in the west run at right angles to the coast, so wind flows easily inland. Also, the north-west uses a lot of energy, so there are only a few wind farms in other parts of the country. A

high-voltage direct current A high-voltage direct current (HVDC) electric power transmission system uses direct current (DC) for electric power transmission, in contrast with the more common alternating current (AC) transmission systems. Most HVDC links use voltages betwe ...

link from the windy islands of Bozcaada and Gokceada to

Istanbul Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...

has been suggested. For an off-grid zero-energy house, an islanded hybrid system with solar and battery has been suggested. The politics of electricity generation are almost all about its price, not about wind power specifically. In general public opinion supports wind power, although sometimes locals complain of insufficient consultation.

Offshore wind potential

Technical potential is 12 GW fixed and 63 GW floating turbines. There is collaboration with

Denmark Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...

to plan

offshore wind power Offshore wind power or offshore wind energy is the generation of electricity through wind farms in bodies of water, usually at sea. There are higher wind speeds offshore than on land, so offshore farms generate more electricity per amount of ca ...

: the

Marmara Sea The Sea of Marmara, also known as the Sea of Marmora or the Marmara Sea, is a small inland sea entirely within the borders of Turkey. It links the Black Sea and the Aegean Sea via the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits, separating Turkey's E ...

is considered most suitable, but the

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal sea, marginal Mediterranean sea (oceanography), mediterranean sea lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bound ...

is also a possible location, as is the Aegean near

Çanakkale Çanakkale is a city and seaport in Turkey on the southern shore of the Dardanelles at their narrowest point. It is the seat of Çanakkale Province and Çanakkale District.grid code A grid code is a technical specification which defines the parameters a facility connected to a public electric grid has to meet to ensure safe, secure and economic proper functioning of the electric system. The facility can be an electricity gene ...

needed improvements, specifically that "active power control and frequency regulation, reactive power control and voltage regulation, and voltage ride-through capabilities should be clarified in detail". Areas off the coasts of Bandırma, Karabiga, Bozcaada and Gelibolu are being considered for Renewable Energy Resource Areas (YEKA). In 2023 Shura Energy Center made several recommendations for tendering.

Environmental impact

Wind farms are prohibited on globally important

bird migration Bird migration is a seasonal movement of birds between breeding and wintering grounds that occurs twice a year. It is typically from north to south or from south to north. Animal migration, Migration is inherently risky, due to predation and ...

routes (including critical migration bottlenecks such as İstanbul Strait, Çanakkale Strait, Belen in

Hatay Hatay Province (, ) is the southernmost Provinces of Turkey, province and Metropolitan municipalities in Turkey, metropolitan municipality of Turkey. Its area is , and its population is 1,686,043 (2022). It is situated mostly outside Anatolia, ...

Borçka Borçka () is a town in Artvin Province in the Black Sea region of Turkey, on the border with Georgia. It is the seat of Borçka District.

Artvin Artvin (Laz language, Laz and ; ; ) is a List of cities in Turkey, city in northeastern Turkey about inland from the Black Sea. It is the seat of Artvin Province and Artvin District. On average one or two birds are estimated to be killed by each turbine each year, mostly small- and medium-size birds. However, the study found that the number of fatalities was not related to the number of birds or flights near the turbine.

Environmental impact report An environmental impact statement (EIS), under United States environmental law, is a document required by the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) for certain actions "significantly affecting the quality of the human environment". An EIS ...

s are more stringent for wind farms over 50 MW. As the wind farms are relatively new and are assumed to operate for 25 years, their lifecycle environmental impact, such as what percentage of various metals will be recycled, is not yet known exactly. However, as their electricity is substituting that of

and gas-fired

power stations A power station, also referred to as a power plant and sometimes generating station or generating plant, is an industrial facility for the electricity generation, generation of electric power. Power stations are generally connected to an electr ...

, it is certain that they are an overall good for the environment by helping to limit greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by Turkey. Lifecycle GHG emissions have been estimated at 15 g eq/kWh (whereas fossil fuel power emits hundreds of g eq./kWh).

Economics

The Turkish Wind Energy Association said in 2021 that over 20 thousand people were directly employed by the sector. According to a May 2022 report from think tank

Ember An ember, also called a hot coal, is a hot lump of smouldering solid fuel, typically glowing, composed of greatly heated wood, coal, or other carbon-based material. Embers (hot coals) can exist within, remain after, or sometimes precede, a ...

, wind and

solar Solar may refer to: Astronomy * Of or relating to the Sun ** Solar telescope, a special purpose telescope used to observe the Sun ** A device that utilizes solar energy (e.g. "solar panels") ** Solar calendar, a calendar whose dates indicate t ...

saved 7 billion dollars on

gas Gas is a state of matter that has neither a fixed volume nor a fixed shape and is a compressible fluid. A ''pure gas'' is made up of individual atoms (e.g. a noble gas like neon) or molecules of either a single type of atom ( elements such as ...

imports in the preceding 12 months.

Feed-in tariff

From 2005, there was a

feed-in tariff A feed-in tariff (FIT, FiT, standard offer contract,Couture, T., Cory, K., Kreycik, C., Williams, E., (2010)Policymaker's Guide to Feed-in Tariff Policy Design National Renewable Energy Laboratory, U.S. Dept. of Energy advanced renewable tariff, ...

Turkish lira The lira (; Currency sign, sign: Turkish lira sign, ₺; ISO 4217, ISO 4217 code: TRY; abbreviation: TL) is the official currency of Turkey. It is also legal tender in the ''de facto'' state of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. One lira i ...

which met with poor market uptake. After being denominated in dollars from 2011 to 2020, the tariff reverted to lira with new rules. The feed-in tariff applies for 10 years. There are extra payments for domestic content.

Auctions

In 2017, the

Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources The Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources () is the government ministry of Republic of Turkey responsible for natural resources and energy in Turkey. The ministry is headed by Alparslan Bayraktar. Despite the ministry being represented on th ...

launched a US$1 billion wind power investment project, and issued a

request for tender An invitation to tender (ITT, also known as a call for bids or a request for tenders) is a formal, structured procedure for generating competing offers from different potential suppliers or contractors looking to obtain an award of business activ ...

. The project, titled YEKA, was for

s in five different regions in the country with a total power capacity of 1 GW and at least 3

TWh TWH or twh could refer to: * Tai Dón language, a language of Vietnam, Laos, and China * Tai Wo Hau station, Hong Kong; MTR station code * Tennessee Walking Horse, a breed of horse * Toronto Western Hospital, a hospital in Toronto, Canada * Tun ...

energy generated annually, an extra 1% of electricity in Turkey. The German-Turkish consortium of

Siemens Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational technology conglomerate. It is focused on industrial automation, building automation, rail transport and health technology. Siemens is the largest engineering company in Europe, and holds the positi ...

-Türkerler- Kalyon bid lowest at US$34.8 per

MWh A kilowatt-hour ( unit symbol: kW⋅h or kW h; commonly written as kWh) is a non-SI unit of energy equal to 3.6 megajoules (MJ) in SI units, which is the energy delivered by one kilowatt of power for one hour. Kilowatt-hours are a commo ...

. The consortium is carrying out

research and development Research and development (R&D or R+D), known in some countries as OKB, experiment and design, is the set of innovative activities undertaken by corporations or governments in developing new services or products. R&D constitutes the first stage ...

, for ten years, on

blades, generator design, material technologies and production techniques, software and innovative gearboxes. The R&D is done by fifty technical personnel, 80% of whom are Turkish engineers, with a budget of US$5 million per year. In 2019, the second 1 GW tender was won for four equal capacity projects in

Balıkesir Balıkesir () is a city in the Marmara Region, Marmara region of Turkey. It is the seat of Balıkesir Province, which is also a Metropolitan municipalities in Turkey, metropolitan municipality. As of 2022, the population of Balıkesir Province ...

Çanakkale Çanakkale is a city and seaport in Turkey on the southern shore of the Dardanelles at their narrowest point. It is the seat of Çanakkale Province and Çanakkale District.Aydın Aydın ( ''EYE-din''; ; formerly named ''Güzelhisar; Greek: Τράλλεις)'' is a city in and the seat of Aydın Province in Turkey's Aegean Region. The city is located at the heart of the lower valley of Büyük Menderes River (ancient ...

and

Muğla Muğla () is a city in southwestern Turkey. The city is the center of the district of Menteşe, Muğla, Menteşe and Muğla Province, which stretches along Turkey's Aegean Sea, Aegean coast. Muğla's center is situated inland at an altitude of ...

, which are all provinces on the west coast. The same year the

European Bank for Reconstruction and Development The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, shortened to EBRD ( French: ''Banque européenne pour la reconstruction et le développement'' or ''BERD''), is an international financial institution founded in 1991 in Paris. As a multilat ...

invested US$100 million in wind and solar power in Turkey. auction prices were around US$40 per MWh. Think tank

say that

energy policy Energy policies are the government's strategies and decisions regarding the Energy production, production, Energy distribution, distribution, and World energy supply and consumption, consumption of energy within a specific jurisdiction. Energy ...

should be changed to auction for far more

and wind power. Since April 2022 low-cost generators such as wind have had their wholesale prices capped (this does not affect unlicensed and FiT): this can be considered a type of

windfall tax A windfall tax is a higher tax rate on profits that ensue from a sudden windfall gain to a particular company or industry. There have been windfall taxes in various countries across the world, including Australia, Italy, and Mongolia (2006–20 ...

. it is unclear whether the money will be a general tax or will be used to subsidise high-cost generators such as

. Merchant projects have won licences with negative bids (meaning the companies pay the government for licences) and are expected to come online in the mid-2020s.

Manufacturing

Nacelles are manufactured locally by

, but most wind turbines are imported. Over half of the supply chain is local, from about 80 companies. It has been estimated that there is potential for about 240 million tons of

green hydrogen Green hydrogen (GH2 or GH2) is hydrogen produced by the electrolysis of water, using renewable electricity. Production of green hydrogen causes significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions than production of grey hydrogen, which is derived fr ...

to be produced by

electrolysis of water Electrolysis of water is using electricity to Water splitting, split water into oxygen () and hydrogen () gas by electrolysis. Hydrogen gas released in this way can be used as hydrogen fuel, but must be kept apart from the oxygen as the mixture ...

by wind power.

External links

Turkish Wind Energy Association

Up-to-date statistics on wind power in Turkey

References

{{Wind power by country