Turkey’s economic boom has led to rising energy demand. The decisions taken now will affect the face of Turkey’s energy mix in the future. The Yuntdag wind energy project serves as an important example for the relevance and sustainability of clean energy technologies.

For the last decade, Turkey’s economy has rapidly developed with annual growth rates of 7% and more. This success story is accompanied by an equivalent rise in energy consumption. Even though the onset of the global financial crisis in 2008 meant a short lull in demand, Turkey desperately needs to drastically expand its power supply.

Turkey’s strategy to expand its energy sector includes environmentally friendly options but these are not without controversy. Along with nuclear power plants, the country has plans for gigantic hydroelectric dam projects to be located in Turkey’s politically unstable southeast. The massive reservoirs resulting from the dams lead to the resettlement of communities, flooding of valuable agricultural land and threaten important cultural assets.

In addition, the rivers that are dammed are vital arteries for Turkey’s southern neighbors, which means that any alteration to the flow of water sparks political conflicts. And lastly, these projects are far away from Turkey’s metropolitan areas, making transmission of electricity very inefficient.

With strong and steady winds, the coastal area of western Turkey is ideally suited to exploit a truly clean and inexhaustible energy source. Yundtag wind farm is located about 60 kilometers north of Izmir. The structures themselves are enormous: the wind turbine is mounted 80 meters above the ground with rotors spanning 90 meters. The potential power (rated output) of each turbine is 2.5 megawatts, equivalent to more than 3300 hp or the power of 30 mid-sized cars.

Altogether the installations yearly feed almost 160,850,000 kilowatt hours of electricity into the regional grid. Considering that in 2007 an average Turkish household consumed 2000 kilowatt hours of electricity (compared to 5000-6000 kilowatt hours for an average German household of four), this is enough to supply more than 80,000 households with clean and sustainable electricity.

Supported by carbon finance, wind power is a success story. Five years ago, the total installed wind power capacity in the country was lower than that of this single project. At current growth rates, Turkey very soon will be amongst the top ten wind power producers. With a long term commitment to this project, First Climate has become part of this success.