By Gulsen Cagatay
ANKARA (AA) - Turkish wind energy sector attracted $12.3 billion over the past 11 years, according to Turkish Wind Energy Association (TUREB) data on Thursday.
Installed capacity in the country was around 146 megawatts in 2007 and has now reached a capacity of approximately 6,500 megawatts.
By the end of the year with the help of 1 gigawatt (GW) from the Turkish Renewable Energy Resource Zone Project (YEKA) along with finalized wind energy tenders of around 3 GW, Turkey's investment will reach around $5 billion in 2017 alone.
Among the cities in Turkey, Izmir on the Aegean coast ranked first with 1,333 MW of total installed capacity. Balikesir located in the Marmara region followed in second place with 1,069 MW, and Manisa also in the Aegean region ranked third with 650 MW of capacity.
In Turkey, 158 wind energy companies are actively operational with 6,500 MW of installed capacity, and 32 projects with 808 MW of installed capacity are under construction.
According to recent data, Turkey generates 8 percent of its electricity from wind energy.
In an interview with Anadolu Agency, TUREB President Mustafa Serdar Ataseven said that Turkey boosted both wind energy installed capacity and attracted a substantial amount of foreign and local investments during the last five years. Moreover, he explained that with the addition of 2,130 MW of capacity, which will be finalized by the end of the year, a significant contribution to Turkey's wind market will be realized.
"After finalizing the tenders and YEKA project, Turkey's wind capacity will grow by around 4 GW in roughly a three to four-year construction period," he said.
However, he warned that for the sustainability of Turkey's expanding wind energy market, the country should avail of private investment to meet its growing demand. Despite the investments and tenders, there will be an investment and capacity gap between 2018 and 2019, he said.
"In order to meet investors' demands, investors that have environmental impact assessment reports and electricity generation licenses should be provided with more electricity capacity to grow their investments and installed capacity," he explained.
According to the General Directorate of Renewable Energy studies, the techno-economic wind energy potential for Turkey is 48 GW but currently only 11GW of project stock is available.
On Aug. 3, Turkey's first 1,000-megawatt wind tender was realized in Ankara in which a Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy - Turkerler - Kalyon Energy consortium won the tender offered by YEKA.
The offered price of $3.48 per kilowatt-hour of electricity production clinched Turkey's first 1,000-megawatt wind tender and surpassed the previous record of $10.30 per kilowatt-hour.
Turkey has 11GW of wind power stock available and has a national target of 20 GW of installed capacity by 2023.
The country's total energy target for 2023 is 100 GW of capacity.