Orders placed with Vestas for two wind farms

Turkey's Aksa Group, a leader in energy production and manufacturing of gas and diesel electric generators, has closed two contracts with Vestas for supply, installation and commissioning of 21 turbines. The first contract, signed in June, is for six V90-1.8 MW units to be installed at Karakurt, near Manisa in western Turkey. It was followed in August by a deal for 15, V80-2.0 MW turbines for a development at Sabenova in Antalya, one of Turkey's windiest regions and a magnet for Danish warm-weather tourists. Delivery is scheduled for early 2007. "Despite many barriers," says Ebbe Funk of Vestas' Mediterranean division, "Turkey has an enormous wind potential and good prospects are foreseen in the long term." The 2005 Wind Force 12 survey, produced by the European Wind Energy Association and Greenpeace International, identified Turkey's wind potential at 88,000 MW, the second largest in Europe after the UK. Among the barriers, inadequate transmission lines loom large, but there has been a recent surge in wind power activity sparked by the country's 2005 renewable energy law (Windpower Monthly, July 2006). Aksa is the latest in a number of local business conglomerates with interests in conventional power generation which have moved into the wind sector. "The liberalisation process has opened a large space for private wind energy developers," says Aksa president, Metin Kazanci.