Turkey to hold tender for giant wind power project next week: Minister

ISTANBUL

Turkey will hold a reverse auction on the energy ministry’s giant wind power project next week, Energy Minister Berat Albayrak announced on July 28.

Eight consortia, including four German giants, participated in Turkey’s 1,000-megawatt (MW) wind power project tender on July 27, according to officials. In addition to the German giants, Chinese and Danish Vestas also took part in the bidding consortia as well as the American corporation General Electric along with their local partners. 

“The bids we took yesterday have shown that a huge path has opened up for renewable energy sources. We will hold a reverse auction next week to complete this process. We hope to reach much lower electricity numbers than today’s figures,” he said during a presentation to academics in Istanbul. 

The project will involve the construction of a 1,000 MW power plant and wind turbines, which will increase Turkey’s wind energy production by 17 percent. 

The winning consortium is expected to build a turbine plant for a nearly $100 million investment by using a minimum of 65 percent local output. Additionally, 80 percent of the engineering team must be composed of Turks, according to the tender specifications. 

Meanwhile, the Turkish-Korean Kalyon-Hanwha consortium on March 20 won a tender bid for the construction of Turkey’s biggest solar power plant with the planned 1,000 MW installed power capacity set to be built in the Central Anatolian province of Konya’s Karapınar district, with an estimated investment volume of $1.3 billion.

Albayrak also said Turkey would accelerate its hydrocarbon exploration and drilling activities by the last quarter. 

“We will realize hydrocarbon drilling activities by our own ship, which will be taken into the inventory in the last quarter of this year. We will be active in hydrocarbon exploration in two large seas neighboring Turkey,” he added. 

The minister noted that the talks for Turkey’s second nuclear power plant were in the final stage. Russia’s Rosatom will build Turkey’s first nuclear power plant in the Akkuyu district of the Mersin province. 

“It is now time for us to create a solid plan for the third plant. We hope to make all of these three nuclear power plants operational by 2030,” Albayrak said.