Turkey designs water turbines

ANKARA - Anatolia News Agency

Ministers, university representatives and TOBB officials pose for cameras at the groundreaking ceremony in Ankara for a 20 million-Turkish Lira water turbine test center. Some 1,500 hydroelectric power plant water turbines will be tested there, officials say. AA photo

Turkey kicked off a project yesterday to build a design and testing center for water turbines, in a bid to cut the country’s dependency on foreign facilities for testing turbines used in hydroelectric power plants and even produce them domestically.

“Although most domestic firms are capable of producing water turbines, they cannot enter turbine production, as the design and testing processes are not carried out in Turkey,” Rifat Hisarcıklıoğlu, the president of the Union of Chamber and Commodity Exchanges (TOBB) said yesterday at the facilities groundbreaking ceremony in the capital city of Ankara.

Turkey will speed up renewable energy production due to the such technology facilities, Emergy minister Taner Yıldız said at the ceremony. Justice Ministers Sadullah Ergin and Development Minister Cevdet Yılmaz were also present at the event. 

If turbine production as well as the design and testing phases can be conducted domestically, Turkey will save $6 billion that is now paid to foreign firms, Hisarcıklıoğlu said. The facility will make things easier for Turkish firms such as the Turkish Electromechanics Industry (TEMSAN), which
plans to join the project, especially in the testing phase, he said.  Long-term goals “Nearly 1,500 hydroelectric power plant water turbines should be  tested [in Turkey] in the next five years. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are paid [to foreign testing centers] for each test. Our dependency on foreign facilities in producing water turbines, as well as in their design and testing, will end after the design and testing center is completed,” Hisarcıklıoğlu said.

The turbine design and testing center is being built by the Chamber of Commodity Exchanges of Turkey’s Economy and Technology University (TOBB ETÜ). 

TOBB is in a bid to build the largest water turbine center in the world, with a two-megawatt turbine capacity. The center will cost 20 million Turkish Liras to construct, half of which is donated by the Ministry of Development. The remainder will be financed by TOBB. The center will also be capable of conducting rehabilitation work on currently operating hydroelectric plants, which will also prevent the transfer of a significant amount of money abroad, Hisarcıklıoğlu said. 

The design and testing of the water turbine at the Keban dam, one of the largest of its kind in Turkey, cost 800,000 euros, he said. Turbine testing is currently carried out in European countries and China. The domestic center will decrease testing costs, as it will not be necessary to transport the turbines thousands of kilometers to those countries, Hisarcıklıoığlu said.