Green Building&Energy in Turkey

State moves forward in renewable energy

2012-01-30T01:27:00.000-08:00

The Energy Market Regulator (EPDK) has announced measurement requirements for applications for sun and wind energy stations. Private companies applying for an authorization to build new energy stations must provide the EPDK with wind and sun measurements for six months at a particular location and one year’s worth of experimental data that has been approved by the Turkish State Meteorological Service. Wind measurements will be taken using wind measurement poles at least 60 meters high off the ground at the possible energy station sites, according to the EPDK specifications. 10 million euro investmentEPDK President Hasan Köktaş told Anatolian news agency that the measurements were a critical part of the investment process; after receiving the measurements this year, they plan to accept applications for the sun energy stations. According to Köktaş, the EPDK is initially aiming for an 11,000-megawatt wind energy project that will later be expanded to 20,000 megawatts. For sun energy, the EPDK is projecting a 600-megawatt target, which could be increased to 10,000 megawatts. This would require a roughly 10 million-euro investment in total. On average 1 megawatt of power can supply electricity to as many as 300 U.S. households per year. According to TurkStat figures, the average person in Turkey consumes 540 kilowatts of electricity in one year.

US asks for transparency in Turkish nuclear bids

2012-01-28T12:32:00.000-08:00

A more transparent and open regulatory environment for the nuclear sector would be more encouraging for American companies that wish to invest in this field, U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Francis Ricciardone said. “Your energy minister [Taner Yıldız] wants to encourage American firms in the nuclear sector. We think that is great, too. The regulatory environment in Turkey, however, discourages American companies from coming because the nuclear sector is wide open around in the world, but is still closed in Turkey,” Ricciardone told Ankara bureau chiefs of various newspapers late Jan. 25. Turkey is planning to build three nuclear power plants in the next decade, totaling 4500 MWe, in the provinces of Akkuyu, Mersin and in Sinop. Turkey and Russia signed an agreement for the construction of the first plant, but talks with Japan for the second plant were suspended after the earthquake in Japan last year. However, U.S. companies do not seem interested in entering this field in Turkey. This is because of poor tender conditions, according to Michael Camunez, assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce, who called on Turkey to adopt an internationally approved tender process in order to attract American companies, during a visit to Ankara last month. “The regulations should be open and clear. There needs to be a strong and independent regulatory institution with long-term purchase contract,” Camunez told reporters. “We have a conversation going on about opening the regulatory environment here to encourage American and foreign investment in the nuclear sector,” Ricciardone said. Citing the energy sector as an important field in which Turkish and American companies could cooperate, he said, “If you do not grow in generation capability, transmission and distribution there will be a bottleneck. It will hold you back. We are keenly interested in American companies and investors participating.”Trade up 35 percentLast December, a U.S. delegation visited Turkey to examine the opportunities for investment and trade in the renewable energy sector. Ricciardone said the Turkish government wanted to encourage American firms in the nuclear sector.In the overall economic partnership between the governments and companies of the two countries, Ricciardone drew a more optimistic picture. Bilateral trade is likely to show an increase of more than 35 percent in the year 2011, he said. “We had great success last year. The trade between Turkey and the U.S. when the final figures are in, which we won’t have for the full calendar year, will probably show an increase better than 35 percent, maybe more,” he said. “President [Barack] Obama, and Prime Minister [Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan and President [Abdullah] Gül have agreed that we need to advance our economic relationship to the level of our strategic defense and diplomatic relationship, and that is what we are targeting,” Ricciardone said. “We want to do even better in 2012. We want to strengthen and exploit the opportunity, to use that framework for bringing the two governments and the two business sectors together.January/28/2012

US-Dutch firm to build Europe's biggest solar plant in Turkey

2012-01-27T22:45:00.000-08:00

A U.S.-Dutch solar company has started talks with a local energy firm to build Turkey’s first and Europe’s biggest photovoltaic power station GiraSolar, a U.S.-Dutch solar company, has begun talks with a local energy firm to build Turkey’s first and Europe’s biggest photovoltaic power station while also manufacturing solar panels for export to Europe.“We are planning to build Europe’s biggest solar plant in Turkey,” Chief Executive Officer Wieland M. Koornstra told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review during a Dutch business mission to Istanbul last week. The mission, which included representatives from 22 companies, was led by Henk Bleker, the Dutch minister for agriculture and foreign trade.Noting the importance of Turkey in the world’s solar energy sector, Koornstra said GiraSolar had held talks with a Turkish energy giant on building a solar power station in the south of Turkey. He said the plant would generate 100 megawatts of energy.The largest photovoltaic, or PV, power plants in Europe were Montalto di Castro Photovoltaic Power Station in Italy (84.2 MW), Finsterwalde Solar Park in Germany, (80.7 MW), Rovigo Photovoltaic Power Plant in Italy (70 MW), Olmedilla Photovoltaic Park in Spain (60 MW), Strasskirchen Solar Park (54 MW) and Lieberose Photovoltaic Park in Germany (53 Mwat the end of 2010.On average, 1 MW of power can supply electricity to as many as 300 households per year.Koornstra said the company planned to manufacture the solar panels in Turkey rather than importing.“I am completely sure that we could manufacture the panels at the same price as China,” he said. “In this way, we would avoid the transportations cost as well.”Noting that there is no solar panel market yet in Turkey, Koornstra said: “We are planning to export the solar panels to European countries. Many firms will inquire about Turkish-made solar panels once we complete this solar power station project in the country.”According to the Turkish Renewable Energy Law, the purchase price for electricity generated from solar power is $0.133 per kilowatt hour. The law also offers a further incentive to renewable energy facilities and states that, provided the technical equipment used in the facility is produced within Turkey’s borders, the facility will be paid an additional $0.004-0.024 per kilowatt hour of electricity purchased by the state for five years after the plant becomes active.[HH] Turkish partner anonymousWithout disclosing the name of the company, Koornstra said: “We are [currently] having discussions with our Turkish partner about the project. At the start of the project nearly 200 million euros will be invested in the power plant.”According to data provided by the chief executive, 20 percent of the amount is slated to be invested by the business partner while nearly 80 percent of the amount could be met with outsource sources, such as Eximbank credits. “We are now also discussing the financial matter with our Turkish partner,” he said.“To produce 1 MW electricity we will need nearly 2,000 square meters of land,” said Koornstra. “We are in search of the most feasible location at the moment.”Noting that the project might be completed gradually over time depending on conditions, Koornstra said, “We could build the plant within two years.”“It takes four to five years to build a nuclear plant. Nearly 20 percent of the total amount of the investment will come from our partner and 80 percent financing will be outsourced,” said Koornstra. “If we build this plant, this would make Turkey known as the solar source of the world.”In the long term, it is better for Turks to have solar panels in their houses than buy power from the grid, he said.Talking about the nuclear plant to be built in Akkuyu, in the southern province of Mersin, Koornstra said, “Turkey should use hybrid energy rather than relying on nuclear energy.”“They always told us that it was safe and stable and now it’s obvious that it’s neither safe nor stable,” he said.Koornstra said Germany and the Netherlands were facing storage problems for nuclear waste accumulated through the years. “They both stored nuclear waste in layers under the ground and they have leakage.”Noting that hybrid energy sources such as wind and solar plants are safe and sustainable for the economy and environment, Koornstra said solar power had become more affordable in recent years, adding that such power presented none of the running costs, storage problems or maintenance problems of nuclear plants.Recent research at Duke University has shown that sophisticated new solar energy production methods make the cheapest and least hazardous energy source that is cheaper and safer than nuclear power, according to United Press International, or UPI. The study said the cost of producing and installing PV cells had been steadily dropping for years and now cost about half of what it did in 1998.In the U.S., the price of nuclear energy through 2011 is expected to equal $0.16-0.18 per kilowatt while solar PV is forecast to cost $0.14 per kilowatt, the study said.

Turkey’s Solimpeks Wins Certification for Hybrid Solar Panels

2012-01-27T09:47:00.000-08:00

I recently installed a fan in my roof to pump out the hot air from the attic and help keep the house cooler during the summer. I also have a solar panel on the roof to produce hot water. It seems logical that the solar energy harnessed for the water heater should also be able to provide electricity to operate the fan, right? Well, it turns out it’s not that simple – so until I install a separate photovoltaic (PV) solar panel on the roof, the fan will be plugged into an electric socket instead.It would be nice to have a single solar panel capable of producing both hot water and electricity. A Turkish company, Solimpeks Solar Energy Corp., is producing precisely this type of combined system, and has now been awarded MCS (Microgeneration Certification Scheme) certification for its Volther hybrid system.According to the company’s communication director, Kemal Ibis, it is the only product to receive such certification for both solar thermal and solar electricity. “This certification will help us to ramp up to sell in the UK because in England it’s compulsory for selling and getting into the Feed-In Tariff program in both the solar electricity and solar thermal scheme,” he explained in an email.According to Ibis, the hybrid system costs approximately 20% less than installing separate systems for PV and solar hot water – and it looks nicer on the roof than a set of two different panels. In addition, the combined system is said to offer higher PV efficiency and durability by keeping the solar collectors cooler.Solimpeks produces two types of Volther hybrid systems, one (PowerVolt) optimized for electricity production and another (PowerTherm) optimized for hot water production. So far, the company has installed systems in Turkey and Western Europe, and is planning to launch in other markets.

Woman Builds Off-Grid Earth Bag Home in Turkey for $3,761

2012-01-27T09:43:00.000-08:00

Everybody’s talking about earth bag construction lately, including The National, which reported this weekend that a British woman has built an earth bag home a la Iranian architecture Nader Khalili. Using dirt from her own 6,500 square foot plot of land, the artist and writer filled dozens of polypropylene sacks that were then stacked to create a striking circular structure overlooking Turkey’s magical Olympos Valley. Despite disbelieving critics, Kerry Bingham’s home is durable and doesn’t melt when it rains. Bingham told The National that building her own off-grid home was inspired by a desire to become more mindful of her consumption habits. ”My goal,” she says, “is to change my lifestyle, to be aware of how I consume and how I can consume in a more responsible way.”Not only has she built a house using locally-sourced and sustainable materials – including lime plaster that has yet to be applied to the outer wall, but she has slashed her carbon and water footprint in other meaningful ways as well.Bingham is building a compost toilet (with a view) that requires absolutely no water to function, and any grey water that she does use for washing dishes and clothes will be recycled after it goes through an on-site constructed wetland that relies on nature to filter out harmful impurities.She also intends to build a water pump that relies solely on power from the sun to function.Unlike the splashy steel and glass monstrosities popping up all over the Middle East, this project genuinely deserves the stamp “sustainable.” And the building’s flat roof and additional doorway also leaves room for expansion .The neighbor – a pomegranate farmer named Dudu – was not convinced of the merits of earth bag construction, but the resiliency of Bingham’s pride and joy has had a transformative effect on all of its critics.

TURKEY: ENERGY EVOLUTION

2012-01-25T05:31:00.000-08:00

Turkey has
become one of the fastest growing energy markets in the world in parallel to its
economic growth registered in the last eight years and is rapidly gaining a
competitive structure. The Turkish Electricity Transmission Company estimates
that Turkey’s demand for electricity will increase at an annual rate of six
percent between 2009 and 2023. The growing energy demand in Turkey is one of the
significant factors along with market liberalization and the country’s potential
role as an energy terminal in its region. These three factors play an important
role in shaping the investment opportunities in Turkey.
The increase in demand has given rise to the long-term investments made by
the private sector. At this point, the Turkish energy sector registered a rapid
growth after the liberalization of the energy market. In line with the
implementation of regulations and the high increase in demand, the electricity
market enlarged its capacity to attract investments to the market.
The Turkish government encourages investors to implement energy projects in
Turkey with new incentives on renewable energy. This ensures that the
government’s feed-in tariff will accelerate investment projects in the coming
years.
The Turkish energy market offers a wide range of activities, from crude oil
exploration to oil and petrochemical products distribution and exports, and from
electricity generation based on all known energy sources to machinery and
equipment manufacturing.
The total amount of investments to be made to meet the energy demand in
Turkey until 2023 is estimated around USD 130 billion.
Turkey functions as an important energy terminal in its region due to its
strategic location between Asia and Europe.
Turkey possesses a significant number of rivers and lakes (with
approximately 36,000 MW of energy potential), which offers ideal opportunities
for the small and large-scale energy companies.
As regards geothermal energy potential, Turkey ranks 7th in the world and
3rd in Europe. Once all planned investments in the geothermal energy sector are
made, the total value-added amount to the economy will be USD 16 billion per
annum.
With its high potential in agriculture and installed capacity in biodiesel
and bio-ethanol, Turkey can be the bio-fuel supply center of Europe.
In order to establish a common energy market with the EU, Turkey plans to
interconnect its energy system with UCTE (Union for the Coordination of
Transmission of Electricity) grid.
The government provides feed-in tariff incentives for the renewable energy
investments.
Turkey ranks 1st in the world in terms of highest growth rate in wind energy
plants and only 15 percent of its potential has been utilized up until now.

Turkey’s ambitious vision of 2023, the centennial foundation of the Republic,
envisages grandiose targets for the energy sector in Turkey. These targets
include:

125,000 MW of installed power (up from 54,423 MW in 2010)
Increasing the share of renewables to 30 percent
60,717 km of transmission lines (up from 49,104 km in 2010)
158,460 MVA of power distribution unit capacity (up from 98,996 MVA in 2010)
Decreasing electricity loss-theft to 5 percent and extending the use of
smart grids
5 billion m3 of natural gas storage capacity (up from 2.6 billion m3 in
2010)
Establishing an energy stock exchange
8 nuclear reactors with a capacity of 10,000 MW will be active
Construction of 4 nuclear reactors with a capacity of 5,000 MW
Construction of power plants with a capacity of 18,500 MW in the coal basins
Full utilization of hydropower
Increasing wind power to 20,000 MW (up from 1,694 MW in 2010)
Power plants with 600 MW geothermal, 3,000 MW solar energy

U.S. Companies See Growth Potential in Turkey

2012-01-25T04:33:00.000-08:00

Strategically positioned at the crossroads of Europe, Asia and the Middle East, Turkey has embarked on a major renewable energy and energy efficiency program. The country aims to increase its clean energy share to 30 percent of its power supply by 2023 — the 100th anniversary of the Turkish republic. With over $40 billion in investment expected in this area by 2020, U.S. companies will see major business development opportunities in solar, wind, geothermal, hydro and all elements of energy efficiency. At the U.S. Embassy in Turkey, we’ve seen Turkey’s economic growth firsthand. This growth of 8.9 percent in 2010 and 11 percent in the first quarter of 2011, has caused a sharp increase in energy demand. Furthermore, Turkey forecasts 6 to 8 percent annual growth in energy demand through 2020, with an expected addition of 50,000 MW to the grid. Public and private sector investment will fund many of these projects, and U.S. companies are taking notice.For example, in a major acquisition, the U.S. giant AES acquired a nearly 50 percent share in AES-Entek Electric Company, a joint venture with Koç Group. This new U.S.-Turkish joint venture will focus on existing and new generation opportunities, including renewables. GE also recently announced a 530-megawatt project, with the Turkish MetCap Energy Investments in Karaman, Turkey. The project will feature a 22-megawatt GE wind farm, a 50-megawatt eSolar “power tower” solar thermal system and GE’s new FlexEfficiency turbine technology. A FlexEfficiency natural-gas fired power plant is designed to rapidly increase or decrease power feeds into the grid in response to intermittent production from renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. GE is calling this Turkish power plant the first “integrated renewables combined cycle” system. The U.S. firm Clipper Wind opened a representative office in 2010 in Istanbul, and U.S. geothermal project developers and equipment suppliers are chasing several geothermal projects in Western Turkey. In addition, the U.S. Department of Energy is leading an innovative Near Zero Zone development in Izmir to develop a pilot project in energy efficiency using U.S. technology, in partnership with GE Ecoimagination, Shaw Group and Johnson Controls.Turkish firms are hungry for U.S. equipment and technology in both renewable energy and energy efficiency, particularly important given high energy costs in Turkey and the need to lower production costs to remain competitive internationally. The U.S. Commercial Service at the U.S. Embassy in Turkey receives five to seven inquiries per month for potential U.S. suppliers of renewable energy and energy efficiency equipment, services and technology (see trade mission opportunity below). U.S. exporters can become even more competitive by offering trade finance to their Turkish importer, and U.S. EximBank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development offer attractive terms to fund sales of American equipment.Based on recent market research by the U.S. Commercial Service in Turkey, the following areas have significant business opportunities for American firms in the next six to 36 months:Wind turbinesGeothermal exploration, drilling and geophysical engineering servicesGeothermal power plant equipmentBiomass power generationWaste to energy systems and solutionsHydroelectric power plant equipment supplySolar power generation systemsMicroturbines, cogeneration systemsCoal gasification and coal-bed methane systems and solutionsEnergy efficiency systems and solutionsFuel cells, heat pumps

A Solar City Tries to Rise in Turkey

2012-01-25T03:28:00.000-08:00

Installing PV arrays across one half of one percent of Turkey's landmass could supply the nation's current electrical capacity By Julia Harte, SolveClimate NewsANTALYA, Turkey—Turkey's weak policy support for solar power hasn't stopped the sun-soaked southern city of Antalya from forging ahead with plans to exploit its solar resource — and to encourage other local governments to follow suit.In April, Antalya opened its long-awaited "Solar House," the first step in its push to become Turkey's first and only solar city.The environmental education center and renewable energy showcase boasts 24 one-kilowatt photovoltaic (PV) panels, among other clean energy solutions such as a windmill and a track that generates power from bicycles.The model house cost about $600,000 and was 90 percent funded by Turkish companies and 10 percent by the United Nations Development Program. It will produce and store all the energy it consumes and feed excess power back into the grid — though it won't profit from doing so.The country's energy authority doesn't yet buy surplus electricity from small producers of solar power. This is partly why the cost of installing solar panels remains prohibitive for nearly all Antalya residents, local observers say."We need to show the Turkish people how we can produce solar energy, because it's a very new concept for most Turks," Mustafa Akaydın, the mayor of Antalya, told SolveClimate News in an interview. According to Akaydın, the Solar House is "preparation" for its wider Solar City Green Antalya plan. Over the next decade and a half, the municipality hopes to transform itself into a clean energy dynamo on par with solar cities like Malmö, Sweden and Barcelona, Spain.Though the financial support structure for the program is still fuzzy, the goal, at least, is clear: "We want to be the pioneers here and show the rest of the country about this solar potential," said Akaydın.Massive Untapped PotentialMore than one million terawatt-hours of solar radiation hit Turkey each year. Solar leaders Spain and California, by comparison, receive approximately 0.8 million terrawatt-hours annually.Theoretically, installing PV arrays across some 770 square miles — one half of one percent of Turkey's landmass — could supply the nation's current electrical capacity.At present, PV systems account for just 5 megawatts of installed capacity. Turkey's 8-gigawatt solar thermal capacity is seen as slightly more promising, but still accounts for less than 1 percent of the country's overall energy production.Antalya's municipal government doesn't yet have a goal for how much extra solar power capacity it hopes to add. For now, there is no accepted international definition of what it takes to earn the moniker of "solar city," though several dozen such cities are said to exist throughout the world, including 25 in the United States.The European Solar Cities Initiative, a project of the International Solar Energy Society, defines solar communities by their "large-scale integration of sustainable energy sources into city planning and urban concepts."In that spirit, Antalya is developing other renewable energies besides solar. A new waste management plant, for instance, will collect 60 percent of the city's sewage and turn it into purified mud, which can then be converted into biogas.The biogas-to-energy conversion facility is still under construction — a new component was finished the same week the Solar House opened — but in two months it will have a capacity of 2 megawatts, according to Münevver Ateş, environmental director at the plant. Once the facility is able to collect all the sewage in the city, its capacity will double.More important than its capacity, however, is the fact that Antalya's plant will produce all the energy it consumes, said Ateş, making it the only sustainable waste management plant in Turkey. "Many Turkish visitors come to study our example."Starting with the RooftopsAntalya's effort to boost its solar capacity will begin with a campaign to encourage individuals to install solar panels on their houses, though it won't be easy.The city currently has between 1 and 2 megawatts of solar power atop local residences, according to Ateş Uğurel, chairman of the Turkish Photovoltaic Industry Association, and founder of Temiz Dunya, the eco-architectural firm that designed Antalya's Solar House. They may not be able to add much more because many Antalya residences are tall apartment buildings with small rooftops already full of thermal heaters, he said."There simply isn't enough space."And then there's the cost. The average Turkish house requires 3 kilowatts of electrical capacity. That amount of solar power costs approximately $10,000 to install, Uğurel said.Widespread adoption should have an impact on costs. In about one month, Mayor Akaydın said he expects the passage of a municipal bylaw that would require future apartment buildings to be lit with PV panels.After the residential campaign, the municipality will install solar power in city parks and gardens; increase its use in Antalya's abundant greenhouses; and encourage local hotel owners to install solar power.To date, the municipal government has installed 60 kilowatts of solar power — 24 kilowatts in the Solar House and the remainder in traffic lights.Solar-Powered Tourism"Antalya has the biggest solar potential in its tourism sector," which attracts 50 million visitors a year, said Uğurel.According to him, rooftops on the city's hotels are big enough that installing PV panels would be a wise upfront investment for owners, providing free electricity once the systems pay for themselves. Improving the solar capacity of Antalya's hotels, Akaydın explained, might also draw more eco-tourists."There's a trend in the world where tourists prefer an ecologically aware city as a destination," he said. "Because of this, some hotel owners are now starting to use solar energy in new constructions."During the final stages of Antalya's transformation into a solar city, the municipality intends to construct a solar farm and nurture a homegrown PV production industry.Plans are already underway for a 100-kilowatt solar "forest" near Antalya, with "trees" composed of PV arrays designed by Mehmet Bengü Uluengin, an ecological architect and professor at Bahçeşehir University in Istanbul, who also designed the Solar House.According to Uluengin, any city aiming to clean up its energy portfolio should start by reducing the amount of energy it consumes."That is where the low-hanging fruit are," he said. "It is much cheaper, and more logical, to eliminate a kilowatt of energy use than to cater to its production via solar."Uluengin also pointed out that for solar to become widely used in Turkey the country's entire energy transmission network would need to be upgraded to a smart grid that could accommodate not only millions of consumers, but also millions of producers."Antalya could become a solar city without necessarily using solar energy at high levels," said Uğurel. "It could educate many people about solar, and use solar architecture to reduce the need for heating and cooling."No Political AlliesWith the exception of Antalya's municipal government, solar power has few political allies in Turkey.The central government passed an amendment to Turkey's renewable energy law at the end of 2010, introducing a new feed-in tariff for solar power of $0.133 per kilowatt-hour. That's just under 10 euro cents per kilowatt, far less than the 45.7 and 33 euro cents that Germany and Spain, respectively, offer their solar producers.In addition, the new amendment restricts the amount of solar power that can be added to the grid over the next two years. Only 600 megawatts of solar power can be connected by December 31, 2013, according to the rule."If there is anything positive about the amendment, it has helped to clear out the 'speculative froth' in solar," said Uluengin."The [Turkish] Solar Expo in 2010 was packed with investors ... This year, the place was virtually deserted. The only people remaining were those truly committed to solar — those with longer-term views and more realistic expectations of returns-on-investment."When applications for new solar power projects in Turkey are submitted later this year, it will present a clearer picture of just how much interest there is in developing the country's solar resource. In the meantime, the government's meager solar subsidies are discouraging foreign companies from investing in Antalya, Akaydın argued."There are a lot of people from all over the world, especially in Germany and China, who want to invest in Antalya's solar projects," he said. "The investors are ready, but the legislation is lacking. This isn't just a task for our municipality; this is a national responsibility."The central government's apathy toward solar power is reflected in Turks' general lack of knowledge regarding solar."People still do not know of photovoltaic technology," said Solar House designer Uluengin. "At trade fairs, we have people coming up to us pointing at PV panels and asking, 'Where is the water storage tank for this thing?' In Turkey, people know solar thermal. They don't know PV."'Very Healthy'Still, Uluengin considers Turkey's solar industry "very healthy" because it is being driven by small-scale and grassroots development."Only if an industry is viable on market forces alone will it be able to survive long term," he said. In coming years, Uluengin believes that most PV systems in Turkey will be installed on the rooftops of commercial users, not in utility-scale applications.Uğurel is also highly optimistic that the solar industry in Turkey can flourish without increased government incentives.In a couple of years he expects solar power to reach grid parity, the point at which its price will rival that of conventional grid power. That's largely because of the rising costs of fossil fuel electricity. Between the first half of 2008 and the first half of 2010, electricity prices climbed roughly 30 percent for Turkish households and industry, according to European Commission figures. At the same time, the cost of PV systems is decreasing as more small Turkish entrepreneurs try their hand at producing panels, Uğurel said. "Every day, a new company enters the solar power sector."

FIT in Turkey

2012-01-25T03:25:00.001-08:00

After months of speculation surrounding the country’s solar feed-in tariff, Turkey has now made photovoltaic power generation subsidy payments law. Under the regulation, payments for renewable energy generation will be determined as dollar cent, as opposed to Euro cent, in Turkish Parliament.Accordingly, prices for RES plants are as follows:Solar: US$13.3 cents,Biomass (including landfill gas): US$13.3 centsGeothermal: US$10.5 centsHydroelectric: US$7.3 centsWind energy: US$7.3 centsThe feed-in tariff will also support concentrated solar power (CSP) and hybrid power plants.These prices will be applied for ten years to those which apply for RES between May 18, 2005 and December 31, 2015. For companies beginning operation later than December 31, 2015, the FiT rates will be determined by the Council of Ministers.The licensing will be arranged by the supervisory Energy Market Regulatory Board, taking into consideration of Interior Ministry, Energy and Natural Resources Ministry, and also State Hydraulic Works’ opinions.Further, if the products utilized for the plants carry the ‘Made in Turkey’ stamp, additional credit will be given for five years after the facility’s establishing date. This support will be applied from US$0.4 to 2.4/kWh.There is however a 600MW cap in place up until December 31, 2013. For applications later than that date, the Council of Ministers will be authorized to determine total installed power.For the first decade, 85% discount will be applied for the power grid permission, lease, easement and certificate of occupancy fees for the facilities which will be established until December 31, 2015.

Turkey Adopts Limited Feed Law

2012-01-23T06:54:00.000-08:00

January 17, 2011
By Paul Gipe

Turkey's parliament has revised its limited feed law with adoption of a
similarly limited policy.

Turkey has had a limited feed-in tariff policy since 2005. The previous
policy paid the equivalent of $0.07 per kWh for wind energy for a period of
seven years. By international standards, the policy was a failure.
Early this year the Turkish parliament adopted a new feed-in tariff policy of
equally limited duration, ten years, and equally limited objectives, 600 MW of
total capacity. As before, tariffs are limited as well.
The tariffs for solar photovoltaics (PV), the most costly of the new
renewable technologies, are only $0.13 per kWh, a third of that in Germany.
One departure from previous policy, Turkey will now offer incentives or bonus
payments for hardware "Made in Turkey". Solar PV systems made in Turkey would
qualify for a bonus payment of nearly $0.07 per kWh.
Industry observers have widely panned the new program as insufficient to
create the volume necessary to attract manufacturing.

Renewable-Energy Cars Heat Up in Turkey

2012-01-23T06:52:00.001-08:00

A strange array of vehicles were seen speeding around Izmir, Turkey last week, as the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) hosted its first Alternative Energy Vehicle Races in the sunny Aegean coastal city. Thirty-eight teams entered the solar car races, while 20 teams brought vehicles to the hydrogen car competition.The event inspired Nihat Ergün, of Turkey’s Ministry for Science, Industry and Technology, to declare that the government will up its investments in renewable vehicles in coming years.Vague promises from the governmentThough Ergün expressed enthusiasm for developing renewable energies at the TÜBİTAK races, the government’s material support for these technologies has been lackluster so far.Ergün’s ministry recently published a Strategy Document for Turkey’s industrial sector between 2011 and 2014. While the paper sets some concrete goals for that time period, such as the development of Turkey’s first automotive brand, it stays vague on renewable energy targets despite frequently mentioning the need for a cleaner energy economy.The document mentions old laws that have been passed to support renewable energy in Turkey, but does not point out that these laws have so far only resulted in subsidies that are too low to make solar and wind power competitive in the wider energy marketplace.Recent reshufflings of the government ministries, though, could improve the prospects for renewable energy in Turkey. In June, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced that the former Ministry of Industry and Trade would lose “Trade” and add “Science and Technology” to its name.As a result of this change, Ergün said in Izmir, his ministry will be able to focus on research and development projects more than it used to.Promising activity from international bodies, private sectorWhile the government slowly begins to appreciate Turkey’s abundant renewable resources and technological potential, private companies and international organizations are already taking advantage of them.The United Nations’ International Centre for Hydrogen Energy Technologies, for example, has already been holding competitions for hydrogen vehicles for several years now. Solar power is widely popular at the grassroots level, as evinced by the omnipresence of solar water heaters and small PV arrays on Turkish rooftops. And Turkish investor MetCap Developments recently contracted a renewable integrated combined cycle power plant from General Electric, the world’s first application of this unprecedentedly efficient power-producing technology.The impressive turnout by university teams at the TÜBİTAK races suggests that Turkey’s next generation of scientists and engineers will be actively engaged in bringing their country into a cleaner energy future. Let’s hope the government follows their lead.

Welcome to TIREC

2012-01-23T06:50:00.000-08:00

2011TIREC 2011 is 4 days of high level congress and exhibition, where Turkish and international renewable energy experts meet to drive innovation and do business.Over 100 leading Turkish and international renewable energy experts will speak at TIREC 2011, during 4 days of high level keynotes, interactive panel discussions and in-depth training courses. 3 focused conferences and additional seminars will ensure in-depth coverage on Wind, Solar, Geothermal and other renewables.3 leading business conferences, the TIREC exhibition, Academy training courses and the TIREC awards and networking evening.

Renewable Energy Law Unlikely to Tap Turkey’s Potential

2012-01-23T06:46:00.000-08:00

Last month the Turkish Parliament passed a long-pending renewable green energy law written by Energy Minister Taner Yildiz. The Energy Minister says this law would create jobs and encourage investments in new sectors. While parliament agrees, environmentalists and members of the renewable-energy industry think the law doesn’t go nearly far enough to help Turkey reach its green-power potential.While Germany is seeking to get 100 percent of its energy from renewable energy by 2050 and England aims to reduce carbon emissions to zero, Turkey’s law should have promoted renewable green energy far more. Turkey, which has great wind and solar energy potential, could do better then this.Investors’ biggest concern is the feed-in tariff, or guaranteed price for energy, set by the Parliament. The renewable green energy law guarantees a price of 7.3 U.S. cents (5.6 euro cents) per kilowatt-hour for wind and hydroelectric power and wind energy, 10.5 U.S. cents (8.1 euro cents) for geothermal energy, and 13.3 U.S cents (10 euro cents) for energy from waste products and solar energy.Environmentalists say that a 24 euro cent feed-in tariff is necessary to launch a strong solar energy market in Turkey. Energy Minister Yildiz disagrees and thinks that investors will do business at those prices.

Turkey's Renewed Clean Energy Hopes

2012-01-23T06:43:00.000-08:00

In 2004, the government of Turkey made a bet on the future: To take advantage of its solar power potential and reduce dependence on imported fossil fuels, the liberal Muslim nation at the crossroads of Europe and Asia passed a renewable energy law, something officials thought would spark a wave of clean energy projects.Several years later, Turkey's feed-in tariffs, which are widely thought to be inadequate, have helped increase domestic investment in alternatives, but they still haven't significantly boosted solar, wind, hydro and geothermal production—coal and gas still dominate its national energy mix.
Undeterred, last month the Turkish parliament more than doubled tariffs for PV installations, while also increasing subsidies for wind, hydro, geothermal and waste-from-energy projects. Istanbul also set an ambitious target of Turkey receiving 30% of its total power capacity from renewables by 2023.But even with the most recent moves, industry experts and environmentalists say the government is still not doing enough, insisting that new program has created bureaucratic barriers likely to deter investment in related sectors. The government itself acknowledges that more work is needed for the country to reach its long-term goals.Although multinational PepsiCo, which is committed to environmental sustainability, uses solar power in its Turkish operations, others haven't waited for the country to do more. Homegrown energy giant Senas Group has instead turned its attention to pursuing solar projects in cleantech-friendly Germany.

RENEWABLE ENERGY IN TURKEY

2012-01-23T06:41:00.000-08:00

Turkey has abundant reserves of renewable energy, such as solar, wind and geothermal. The
benefits of exploiting these sources would be enormous:
by relying completely on indigenous resources, renewables would reduce
reliance on imported fuels and enhance Turkey's energy security.
the environmental impact of renewable technologies is far less than that of
nuclear and fossil fuel power plants. There are no emissions of greenhouse gases
or toxic wastes;
the cost of electricity from some renewable energy sources is already
competitive with many conventional technologies, and is dropping rapidly;
renewable technologies have no fuel costs and are virtually inexhaustible;
Solar
It has been calculated that Turkey receives sunlight equivalent to roughly 11
thousand times the amount of electricity generated in Turkey in 1996. Clearly,
both photovoltaic and solar-thermal systems could be used to great effect. Use
of solar thermal is already widespread. In 1995 it was calculated that solar
thermal generated 52,000 tonnes-of-oil-equivalent of heat. Indications suggest
that this could increase six-fold in the next 15 years. The potential for PV is
virtually unlimited, and the price for these systems is declining rapidly.
Wind
Wind energy is already in use in many parts of the world at a price
competitive with conventional technologies. The latest technologies can produce
electricity at 4.4c/kWh, comparable to many conventional sources1. In Turkey, w ind energy has great potential. Figures
from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) show that
Turkey theoretically has 160 TerraWatt hours a year of wind potential, which is
equivalent to twice the country's electricity productio n in 1996.
Geothermal
Turkey has one eighth of the world's geothermal potential and is ranked 7th
in the world. The cost of electricity generated from geothermal reserves is
between 3-10c/kWh. The bottom end of this range is competitive with conventional
systems. The Turkish G overnment has already recognised the potential of
geothermal and in 1972 began to implement a program of construction which would
have seen nearly 710 Megawatts installed by now. Unfortunately, the program was
not fully implemented and this rich resource remains unexploited. Recently some
local authorities have announced plans to utilise geothermal, but there is still
a lack of coordinated support from the central Government2.
NOTES:1) Elsam Power Pool Report, Denmark, , Jan 1997.
2) Yeni asir, 19.2.98.

US companies seek local energy accords

2011-12-05T10:21:00.000-08:00

Turkey’s goal to become one of the world’s top 10 economies by 2023 may falter if it fails to invest enough in energy, a U.S. official said yesterday as he led a delegation of American businessmen looking for energy deals in Turkey.“Turkey has set a very ambitious aspiration to be a top 10 economy by 2023, the 100th anniversary of the modern Republic,” U.S. Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Market Access and Compliance (MAC) Michael Camunez said in a speech at the Ankara Industry Chamber (ASO). “To achieve this goal, Turkey will have to triple the size of its economy, which will require significant foreign investment. Investments in the energy sector are one of the key factors for Turkey to achieve that goal.”He said Turkey would need $200 billion in foreign investment in order to draw 30 percent of its electricity supply from renewable sources in the next 12 years, in addition to using the best technology available worldwide.Camunez visited Ankara at the helm of a delegation made up of representatives of 16 leading U.S. companies in the renewable energy sector interested in investment partnerships in Turkey, as well as government officials from U.S. financing agencies. “It is a very special time in the relationship between the U.S. and Turkey,” he said. “Much credit is owed to our leaders, President Barack Obama, President Abdullah Gül and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for the vision and model they put forward of a strategic partnership between the two countries. Their vision was to ensure economic bilateral relations were as strong as the strategic and political relationships.”ASO chairman Nurettin Özdebir said Turkey’s urgent interest lay in renewable energy given global climate changes and the country’s above-average energy consumption. “We are in a region that will be affected the most from climate changes due to global warming. Anatolia is faced with the risk of desertification,” said Özdebir. He said Turkey was using 30 percent more energy compared to country average in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). “In comparison, Japan uses one third of the energy we use,” he said. “As the need for energy rises, the price of energy will also rise, while having a negative effect on the climate.”The companies whose representatives attended the meeting included General Electric, Abound Solar, WorldBusiness Capital Inc. and Dow Energy of the United States, as well as Nurol, Güriş, Yüksel Enerji, GAMA, OSTİM and Aksu Mining of Turkey.

Why don't we like solar energy?

2011-11-29T01:32:00.000-08:00

Tunç Korun is the second generation boss of Form Group (Form Şirketler Grubu), which has specialized in productive use of energy since 1965.His group created a cooling system for hotels using seawater. He also focuses on heating homes using a system installed underground and, more recently, producing solar powered electricity.Korun has dedicated much of his energy to produce his own electricity by installing solar panels of 2 kwh to the roof of his own house. He is very right to do so in a country like Turkey where there is plenty of sunshine. However, the data he submits demonstrates how far behind Turkey is in this field.Germany, which does not even have one tenth of our sun, is the world leader in solar energy, having installed an 18,000 megawatt capacity. The runners-up include Spain, Japan, the U.S., Italy, China and France. As of the end of 2010, installed solar energy capacity in the world has reached 35,730 megawatts.According to International Energy Agency calculations, by 2020, solar energy capacity will be up to 390,000 megawatts.Looking at Turkey we see that installed power capacity is only 3 megawatts.In short, we have seriously missed a free energy source that nature has awarded us with only “one in 10,000” of the world’s installed power.In a conversation with Korun two and a half years ago, he said that the newly appointed Energy and Natural Resources Minister Taner Yıldız was enthusiastic about “renewable energy including solar power.”Today, Korun is pessimistic about the policy the energy minister has adopted. “Yıldız has pushed aside renewable energy. One or two companies like us that defend solar energy were full of hope for two years but not now. We were saying that Turkey was dependent on foreign natural gas and now, dependency on nuclear energy is increasing. The resources we have in hand are being ignored,” he said.Compared to two years ago, the cost of producing electricity from the sun has decreased to 2,000 euros per kwh from 5,000 euros. This is good news.The bad news is the incentive payments the state grants for electricity production from the sun. According to Korun, this is a “negative incentive” because the $0.13 incentive per kwh the state has declared past January is below the present grid price. Consequently, it is obvious Ankara has a dim view on solar energy.At a time when governments focus more on “low carbon” economies and opt for all kinds of renewable energy, Turkey can take small steps forward only with the efforts of the private sector.The photovoltaic panel system that produces electricity from the sun developed by the Form Group has been installed in some buildings of major companies such as Arçelik, Migros, Özdilek, Toyota and Perfetti. Demand for the photovoltaic panel system is gradually increasing, Korun said, and companies favor this system because of prestige of obtaining a “green building” certificate.I have not quite heard that public buildings have had solar energy systems installed despite the fact that they should be the ones pioneering in this field.I wonder if Turkey’s Housing and Development Administration ever considers solar energy when it launches major projects within the context of “urban transformation” due to the risk of earthquakes.

Ukraine delegation invites Turkish companies for mega projects

2011-11-22T12:40:00.000-08:00

Ukraine is calling on leading Turkish firms to take a share in the country’s giant projects, ranging from energy to construction initiatives worth approximately $15 billion, the top executive of a Turkish business council said yesterday.Turkish firms have been invited to collaborate on these projects as Turkey has already proved its capacity through its investments in Ukraine, according to Ruşen Çetin, chairman of Turkish-Ukrainian Business Council of Foreign Economic Relations Board (DEİK).The many energy, infrastructure and construction projects designed by Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych are likely to attract Turkish firms to form consortiums.The Ukrainian president will visit Turkey on Dec. 22 to meet Turkish Union of Chambers and Commodities Exchange (TOBB) and leading Turkish firms to finalize some of the projects, Çetin added.“Ukraine plans to construct a liquefied natural gas [LNG] terminal in one of the Black Sea ports of Ukraine in order to receive, store and re-gasify liquid natural gas,” said Vladyslav Kaskiv, head of the Ukrainian State Agency for Investment and National Projects of Ukraine (SAINPU) while also noting the possibility of delivering the gas to Ukrainian and European consumers.The project envisages the construction of a LNG terminal with a total capacity of 10 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year. The country aims to attract $9.5 million investment in biomass energy in the Kyiv region.There are also separate plans for businesses from the two countries to work together on sport facilities build in preparation for the Ukrainian Winter Olympic Games bid in 2022. The project, named “Olympic Hope 2020,” would take place in the valley of Borzhava, in the southern Ukrainian Carpathian Mountains. Residence blocks, hotels and winter sport facilities would be built on a plot of nearly 350,000 square meters of land.In addition, the Ukrainian “Clean City” project envisages the construction of 10 centers with a total capacity for household waste of up to 2 million tons per year, as well as the realization of the “Open World” initiative, which is designed to develop broadband network access for nearly 20,000 schools across Ukraine.Ukraine is also planning to spend 40 million euros on the construction of a 10-megawatt solar power plant and 150 million euros on the construction of a 100-megawatt wind farm. On average, 1 MW of power can supply electricity to as many as 300 U.S. households per year. According to TurkStat figures, the average person in Turkey consumes 540 kW of electricity in one year.“Turkish construction firms have nearly $20 billion in contracts in nearly 90 countries,” said Selçuk Tayfun, deputy secretary general of Istanbul Chamber of Commerce, noting that the Ukrainian construction projects of Turkish firms were worth $3.7 billion

November/22/2011

GE, Metcap invest in energy facilities

2011-11-18T09:45:00.000-08:00

General Electric and Turkey’s Metcap have agreed to jointly build a natural gas-fired power plant in the northwestern province of Kırklareli, as well as a hybrid power plant based on natural gas, solar and wind power in the Central Anatolian province of Karaman.The Eurostar project to be built in the small village of Erikleryurdu in Kırklareli with a capacity of 878 megawatts will help generate power for Istanbul, supporting Turkey’s efforts to modernize its aging energy infrastructure and meet growing electricity requirements, said Kerem Metin, a deputy chairman in Metcap.“The capacity is slated to be increased in the future and connected to Istanbul grids and Bulgarian and Greek grids,” he said during a press meeting in Istanbul on Nov. 18. The Eurostar plant will consist of nine gas turbines, one stream turbine and one heat recovery stream generation unit.“Dervish,” the other joint project, will initially have a capacity of 570 megawatts, which is scheduled to be increased to up to 1.08 gigawatts in the future. The project will enable the power grid to efficiently utilize wind, solar and natural gas based electricity generation, said Celal Metin, Metcap’s chairman. Dervish will be completed in 2015, according to officials.“Turkey’s dependence on foreign energy comes second after China,” Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yıldız said during a meeting.The country’s energy needs will be doubled in 10 years’ time, he said.“We have to meet the demand and reduce our dependence on energy imports,” he said, noting that renewable energy sources had the potential to play an important role on that issue.

Turkish politics hindering renewable energy, group says

2011-10-17T12:47:00.000-07:00

Barriers to implementing the complete usage of renewable energy are political rather than technical or economic, according to the final conclusions of the International 100% Renewable Energy Conferences and Exhibitions (IRENEC), which was held in Istanbul Oct. 6-8.“Political resistance and interest groups prevent [the 100 percent use of renewable energy],” IRENEC wrote in a press statement yesterday.Transition to a decentralized energy system is highly hindered by the existing energy production system, which is highly centralized, according to the statement. Each building could have its own solar energy production, each forest area could have biomass energy and each windy region could have its own wind energy production point instead, it said.About 200 representatives from universities, research institutions, energy technology and industries manufacturing, investors, managers, urban planners and architects from 30 countries participated in the conference.Examples from Germany, Austria and Denmark presented at the conference showed how proper incentives and policies could make 100 percent renewable energy for whole cities or provinces. Political will and decisiveness in these countries has encouraged renewables, the statement said.

October/17/2011

Turkey, potent in geothermal

2011-09-25T01:42:00.000-07:00

Turkey could save up to $400 million annually if it fully uses its potential in the geothermal energy sector. Turkey could save up to $400 million annually if it fully uses its potential in the geothermal energy sector, according to the Energy Ministry’s vice general director for metals exploration, Hayrullah Dağıstan.Speaking at the Energy and Environment Sector Board’s consultative meeting Sunday in the eastern province of Van, Dağıstan said Turkey could gain a $10 billion net income in the medium term and employ some 300,000 people if it fully and efficiently utilizes its potential in the geothermal energy sector.

Turkish village opts for wind energy

2011-09-10T12:54:00.000-07:00

A Turkish village in the northwestern province of Bursa has begun producing its own electricity after the state power company ended service due to the village’s unpaid electricity bill.Akbıyık village in Yenişehir found an alternative way of generating its own electricity after the Turkish Electricity Distribution Company (TEDAŞ) cut the electricity of the villagers who could not pay their bills, which totaled 33,000 Turkish Liras, 1.5 years ago, Doğan news agency (DHA) reported Sunday. The villagers, after conducting research about alternative sources of energy, proposed a windmill project to the Bursa Provincial Administration nearly a year ago. After the project was approved for nearly 160,000 liras, the village started to produce approximately 50 kilowatt-hours of electricity and was able to pump water to homes.Kemal Demirel, secretary general of the provincial administration, said windmills in Turkey were run by private companies, but this particular windmill belonged to the villagers, according to DHA. The project was completely funded by the administration. “They have no electricity expense at the moment,” said Demirel, adding that the same project would be implemented in other Bursa villages in the future.“We already paid our debt to TEDAŞ, and now without needing any other company, we are generating our electricity freely,” said Mustafa Çiçek, the village’s headman. Hydrogen island in the westMeanwhile, the International Centre for Hydrogen Energy Technologies (ICHET), a United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) project, launched one of its global pilot projects on the Aegean island of Bozcaada, with the plant beginning generation yesterday. The pilot plant has photovoltaic panels of 20 kwh and a 30 kwh windmill to provide electricity to 20 houses on the island.“Generating energy from hydrogen will be a model for many other cities to find alternative and clean energy models,” ICHET-UNIDO Turkey General Director Mustafa Hatipoğlu said at the opening ceremony held in Bozcaada.

Vestas competes with rivals for Turkey wind power sales

2011-07-06T09:52:00.000-07:00

Vestas Wind Systems, the world’s largest wind-turbine maker, will compete with Enercon and Nordex for market share in Turkey as the government awards more wind-power licenses, according to a company managing director.“Vestas is the biggest wind turbine supplier in Turkey with about 30 percent market share,” Mehmet Ali Neyzi, a managing director in charge of Turkey and the Middle East for Danish-based Vestas. “Now that the government has paved the way for new licenses, after a suspension period, competition has started to increase, and we want to keep our market share, though some minor fall is possible.”A new law guarantees the government will purchase wind and hydro power for 7.3 U.S. cents per kilowatt hour, and there are additional incentives planned for using locally made equipment, potentially adding 0.4 cents to 2.4 cents to the guaranteed price for five years. This is attracting investment after three years of lull, Neyzi said. Purchase prices for wind power in Europe are about 13.15 U.S. cents.Turkey, which has 50,475 megawatts of total power capacity including 1,406 megawatts from wind, received wind-power license applications for about 80,000 megawatts in 2007. The Turkish Electricity Transmission Company, or TEİAŞ, started auctions in February to award licenses for 8,000 megawatts of wind power and has awarded licenses for about half that total, according to the utility’s website. The government aims for 20,000 megawatts of wind power by 2020, about one-quarter of total capacity.Vestas is also competing with General Electric and Siemens to supply wind power equipment in Turkey, Neyzi said. Enercon and Nordex are its biggest rivals in the sector, he said.[HH] Striving to cut foreign dependenceTurkey wants to increase hydroelectric, wind and solar power to cut dependence on gas from Iran and Russia and meet increasing power demand, which Neyzi estimates is growing 6 percent to 8 percent annually.“We urgently need the secondary legislation to be passed” to provide the additional incentives for using locally produced wind-power equipment, Neyzi said.“Wind equipment prices fell about 20 percent from 2008 and this will help the government to reach its wind-power capacity target,” Neyzi said. Vestas is delivering orders within six to eight months, compared with about two years before the financial crisis hit global demand in 2008, he said.Vestas, which has manufacturing plants in Spain, Italy, Germany and Denmark, is studying options to build blades and nacelle casings in Turkey, Neyzi said. “Turkey can be a good manufacturing location with its logistics advantages and quality workforce,” he said.If Vestas builds its own blades in Turkey, it will do so through its wholly owned local unit, Neyzi said. Vestas has a Turkish subcontractor in western Bursa province, which builds turbine towers, he said.General Electric, or GE, which aims to expand its Turkish energy business, may revive a plan developed before the 2008 credit crisis to build wind turbines in Turkey, Mete Maltepe, the head of GE’s local energy units said in an interview in November.Vestas is working with Aksa Akrilik Kimya Sanayii, a Turkish maker of acrylic and carbon fibers, to procure carbon fibers for its wind turbine blades.

Interest in renewables rising, Frost says

2011-07-06T01:44:00.000-07:00

The recovery of the global economy and rising oil prices are encouraging investors to turn to renewable energy, according to a recent report by Frost & Sullivan. With increasing attention on the development of renewables, Turkey is among the countries that will witness strong growth in this area, the researcher and consultancy firm said.According to Frost & Sullivan estimates, non-hydro renewables - wind , solar, biomass, geothermal and marine energy - are expected to more than double their global share from 3.6 percent in 2010 to 7.7 percent in 2020.“Turkey is highly dependent on natural gas imports for power generation,” said the report. “This is prompting greater investments in alternative generating options. The state is aiming to increase their share notably by 2023 in the energy mix.”Turkey‘s energy demand is expected to grow by 6-8 percent in the forthcoming years, the report said, emphasizing the key driver of growing interest in renewables.Investments in the solar market have lagged behind due to “lacking complementary regulations,” according to Frost. “The market will hopefully accelerate after the completion of the grid connection regulation that will define the procedures and the technical details of the connection of the solar systems to the grid,” said the report.For wind energy, Turkey’s installed capacity has reached 1,266 megawatts as of the end of 2010, Frost said. However, companies face a “long licensing period” with many procedural changes implemented through the applied projects, the consultancy said. Frost found the 2023 target to reach 20,000 MW in installed capacity “a quite optimistic goal” within the current bureaucratic framework.With a potential of 600 MW, Turkey ranks seventh in the world in geothermal energy. “After the passing of the latest law declaring the new feed-in tariffs among renewables in 2010, the industry promises a brighter future,” Frost said in the report.

Zorlu to build largest geothermal power station in Turkey

2011-07-01T01:44:00.000-07:00

Zorlu Doğal Elektrik, a sister company of Turkish energy producer Zorlu Enerji, will construct the country’s largest geothermal power station in Kızıldere in the southwestern province of Denizli.Japan’s Sumitomo Corporation and Fuji Electric, both world-renowned companies, won the tender to build the power station, which will provide 60 megawatts of electrical power and 50 megawatts of thermal power capacity.On average 1 MW of power can supply electricity to as many as 300 U.S. households per year. According to TurkStat figures, the average person in Turkey consumes 540 kW of electricity in one year.“We have made an important step toward Turkey’s largest geothermal power station, which we aim to finish in 2013,” Arif Özozan, Zorlu’s general director, said in a statement.Through this new investment, the group aims to support new working areas, particularly in greenhouse business and thermal tourism. “We will give priority to both local employment and organic agriculture,” he said.Zorlu will soon possess a steam turbine with a capacity of 650 tons per hour that will be produced in Japan and delivered to the group in July. It will be installed at the Kızıldere geothermal power station that Zorlu Enerji took over in 2008.The company first did some rehabilitation works to increase the station’s capacity from 7 to 15 megawatts, according to Özozan. Drilling and exploration works then followed for about a year, after which Zorlu decided to invest in Turkey’s largest geothermal power station.

Turkey should switch to renewables, expert says

2011-06-09T13:01:00.000-07:00

As one of the strongest economies in the region Turkey should not rely on nuclear and fossil fuels such as oil and gas, which is the biggest import item of the country, but rather focus on renewable energy sources, according to a top executive of the local branch of a European renewable energy association.“Nuclear is no more a solution for meeting energy demand in a sustainable way,” Tanay Sıdkı Uyar, president of the Turkish branch of the European Association for Renewable Energy, or EUROSOLAR, told the Daily News on Tuesday in a phone interview. Turkey should abandon plans to build fossil fuel and nuclear power plants, he added.Turkey currently plans to build 16,000 megawatts worth of fossil fuel power plants in addition to three nuclear power stations. Uyar said, however, the country should no longer continue to adopt the technologies that developed nations have already abandoned.“Despite the general belief, renewable energy sources are much more affordable for Turkey,” said Uyar, noting that “internalizing external costs” of nuclear energy and fossil fuels is way higher than renewables. According to him, if Turkey starts on the nuclear adventure, the importance of renewable energy would never be fully understood.Uyar also said Turkey has the potential to switch to renewable energy sources and could use them to meet 100 percent of the country’s energy demand by 2020.Turkey currently imports 75 percent of its energy, which is equivalent to 99 million tons of oil annually, and is expected to need 218 million tons of oil by 2020, according to the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey, or TÜBITAK.Focusing on renewable resources is crucial for the country’s EU candidacy, as the bloc is considering a tax based on carbon emissions to reduce fossil fuel consumption.Import deals“Turkey has import deals for gas and oil that require the country to pay for them whether they are fully consumed or not,” Uyar said, adding that the country should make a decision about the renewable energy sources as soon as possible. Emphasizing that Europe and the U.S. had started working on renewable resources in the 1980s, Uyar said, “Turkey is already late, but we should start supporting renewable energy in order to lessen dependency on Iran and Russia.”Turkey also is preparing to host the International 100% Renewable Energy Conferences, or IRENEC, on Oct. 6-8 this year in Istanbul to pursue improvements in the energy efficiency and renewable energies. Internalization of external costs, wind turbine technologies, solar power and zero-energy buildings are among the topics to be discussed during the conference.The government introduced a new incentive for renewable energy last year: a feed-in tariff for solar power of $0.133 per kilowatt-hour. This is under 10 eurocents per kilowatt and less than the 45.7 and 33 eurocents Germany and Spain pay respectively. “This cannot be called a feed-in tariff at all,” Uyar said.Private companies’ applications to the Energy Market Regulatory Authority, or EMRA, have reached 802 since 2007 and are still pending approval. Hasan Köktaş, head of the EMRA, said Monday Turkey’s electricity generation from wind plants would exceed 1,600 MW and that investments in wind power would reach to 1.6 billion euros by the end of this year, Anatolia news agency reported.

Turkish minister reacts aganist court decisions, environmentalists

2011-05-29T01:46:00.000-07:00

Stays of execution and annulment decisions by Turkish courts cause slowdowns in hydroelectric power plant and wind energy investments, according to Energy Minister Taner Yıldız.The Turkish government aims to evaluate all the energy resources, by giving priority to domestic and renewable energy resources, Yıldız said, speaking to the Anatolia news agency. “The important point is to form a mixture of energy generation that will provide an optimum price.”“We currently observe a slowdown in hydro investments due to reactions from environmentalists and stays of execution and annulment decisions of courts,” Yıldız said. “These developments also affect investors. They say there are problems in hydroelectric and wind in addition to problems in domestic coal. There is no resource left, the sole resource then is natural gas,” he said.Noting that he always calls on related ministries and non-governmental organizations, Yıldız said: “We always propose to sit around a table and discuss the technical part of the issue. We say let’s look at the red points that are not available for renewable energy investments, including cultural and natural properties, and then pick others.”Turkey still cannot agree on from which resource it should generate its electricity need, Yıldız said. “One institution says that you built hydroelectric power plant and damage the nature. Yes, there are some bad examples, I do not object to them. We should definitely be sensitive to the environment. But others say do not build a wind farm, because it damages the radar. Do not use nuclear and coal either, they damage nature, too.”Recalling the government’s targets for the Republic’s 100th anniversary of foundation in 2023, Yıldız said within this scope Turkey’s economy would gain its full potential from hydro energy by then. The capacity of wind energy is striving for 20,000 megawatts, and the target is 600 megawatts in geothermal energy, he said. “At least 10 percent of the energy of the country is expected to be met by nuclear energy.”The installed capacity for hydroelectric energy, which was nearly 12,000 megawatts in 2003, reached around 16,000 megawatts by the end of last year, he said, adding that this figure for wind farms increased to 280 megawatts from 17 megawatts. “These figures are insufficient. Still, we have done a lot and we will continue to do more.” Two nuclear power plants planned to be established, one in the northern province of Sinop and other in the southern province of Mersin, will meet 10 percent of the electricity installed power and 20 percent of electricity consumption, Yıldız said.

Steel giant wins wind energy bid at record price

2011-05-13T10:06:00.000-07:00

İÇDAŞ, the biggest private sector steel producer in Turkey based on production capacity, announced Friday that it won the bid for the wind plant to be installed on Biga peninsula in western Turkey by offering 5.1 kuruş per kilowatt-hour of wind.İÇDAŞ will be paying the state 11 million Turkish Liras annually for “wind rights,” which totals around 220 million liras in 20 years with consumer price index excluded.The power generated at the plant will be used to meet both the region and the company’s energy needs. IÇDAŞ previously installed one coal-powered and one hydroelectric power plant in the region.Evaluating the bid results in a press release, İÇDAŞ General Manager Bülend Engin said the company’s next target was establishing solar plants to meet the company’s energy consumption needs. “As we all know our country runs on very limited domestic energy resources. Therefore, we should be working on the make the best of our renewable resources like solar and wind power.”The price İÇDAŞ offered for the plant bid is listed as an unprecedented offer in the press release. Among the best offers in energy bids so far are 3.43 kuruş offered for Çan Transformer Station, 2.82 kuruş offered for Ayvalık Transformer Station and 2.76 kuruş offered for Taşucu Transformer Station.

Report says renewables require different incentives

2011-05-09T10:09:00.000-07:00

Turkey it needs to develop different incentive methods for different types of technologies in order to reach its established renewable energy power targets, according to a Deloitte report.Deloitte Turkey released a renewable energy report in late April to provide a thorough analysis of Turkey’s renewable energy policies and targets.The report underlines that the key factor in acquiring the set targets in renewable energy generation is the incentive mechanisms, adding the most successful countries in carbon capping energy types merge multiple mechanisms. The report elaborates on the road map Turkey needs to attain its goals, given that it currently is in the stage of infrastructure studies concerning the formation of incentive mechanisms.The Deloitte report analyses Turkey’s current regulations, either in effect or in draft, concerning the electricity generated out of renewable resources and provides an end-analysis to aid development of renewable energy in the country.Evaluating the report, Deloitte Turkey Energy and Resources Group Responsible Partner Sibel Çetinkaya said the report was the result of a study of the renewable energy targets and strategies of more than 100 countries and it showed that different countries needed to develop different strategies for different types of renewable resources.“The best solution seems to be preparing a portfolio standard in design and application of the incentives,” she said.The types of incentive mechanisms the report mentions are fixed price guarantee, premium guarantee, quota-based green certificate, bid incentives, investment incentives and tax exemption. The report elaborates on the application areas and specific uses of each mechanism, while referring to the best examples in the world.According to the Deloitte report, Spain and Germany offer higher incentives than production costs, while the incentives in Finland are way below production costs. According to Deloitte’s research, the report notes, incentives slightly higher than production costs are most successful.[HH] ‘Turkey can reach its renewable targets’Deloitte experts state that it is possible for Turkey to attain its goals in renewable energies.“Turkey can reach its green energy targets in the following term, provided that the overall conduction capacity is increased, network investments and ameliorations are made, a central estimation center particularly for solar and wind energies is established, and the technological platform to render the incentive mechanisms effective is developed,” the report states.Turkey also needs immediately to prepare the crucial infrastructure like market management integration and diversification of fund resources.“To that end, it is of utmost importance for the investors to take action on sound market analyses,” the report says.

Access roads for wind farms reveal hidden costs of 'going green'

2011-05-02T10:11:00.000-07:00

As Turkey seeks to capitalize on green energy projects, those looking to build in the wind-energy sector face several environmental and procedural hurdles. As prospective developers in this sector have discovered, the overall costs of implementing a large-scale renewable energy project extend far beyond installation, a problem evident in the need to construct access roads in western Turkey.In Turkey, the wind energy sector is a fairly new sector, only gaining prominence in the last 30 years. Building the foundations for wind energy in the country is a “special process,” as a representative from one of Turkey’s largest wind energy companies puts it.According to the representative, who spoke on condition of anonymity, every wind energy project in Turkey requires new access roads, due to the difficult terrain that is generally present in suitable wind farm locations. Most wind farms are often built on top of hills or in mountainous regions, largely inaccessible by roads.“The main roads mainly have to be re-built, particularly if there are many curves, a major infrastructure obstacle for wind turbine transport, since the trucks are not able to make sharp turns,” according to the representative. “Turkey is not like Germany, where most wind farms are built near highways, and where the land is flat. Roads must be built, since none exist in these areas, and more specifically they must be built to sustain heavy and large loads.”Environmentalists and community-based organizations, despite generally being in favor of these endeavors, at times have radically different opinions from renewable energy advocates. Local communities in particular may not always be so keen on the construction of service roads for wind turbines in their regions. Tasked with not only creating a renewable energy plant but also an infrastructure system, public and private authorities need to calculate the environmental and financial costs of these infrastructure schemes. This is why in Turkey, where investors are aware of this problem, wind energy companies generally anticipate access roads costs in their projected costs.Mustafa Ataseven, chairman of the Turkish Wind Energy Association, says service road construction in Turkey can be carried out in two ways.“Investors can make a contract with a Turkish company that then directly interacts with the various sub-contractors and construction companies. However, if the investor is able to finance the costs without any credit, they can directly make a deal with sub-contractors,” Ataseven told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review.In both cases, the Turkish construction sector benefits from these contracts.Ataseven said it is mostly local companies that are the ones constructing access roads, either as a sub-contractor or as an investor.However, access roads are not only a financial consideration. They also can affect the local environment and the local population. Accordingly, wind energy developers must consult with local authorities, NGOs and other stakeholders when planning and constructing a wind farm.A representative of Aksa, a Turkish power generation company with three wind farms in Turkey, said his company’s wind farms had to account for building access roads in the mountains and forests, steps that were “necessary for the projects.”Aksa was also required to consult with the Ministry of Environment during the planning process of its wind farms.“We are obliged by the Ministry of Environment to prepare documentation for local communities on the specifics of the project, which can take between five and six months on average,” the representative told the Daily News.At the Turkish Wind Energy Association, Ataseven said the process of building service roads has not been disruptive to local communities.“The local construction business is good in Turkey. As you know, Turkey is second in the world in the construction business,” he said.According to Ataseven, since investors often employ local construction companies to construct these service roads, the locals benefit from wind farm schemes.“They use local construction companies, and these companies know their people. They have good relations with the local population,” he said.The wind energy sector, it seems, has thus far avoided the problems associated with Turkish hydropower schemes, where local villagers, particularly in Turkey’s Black Sea region, have often been grossly dissatisfied with the way energy was being generated at their expense. With wind still in its infancy, the jury is still out on whether it is worth the money, and worth all the asphalt.

Enel optimistic about Turkish geothermal licences

2011-05-02T01:47:00.000-07:00

In light of specialist concerns, Enel has expressed confidence and revealed a realistic stance toward its recently purchased Turkish geothermal sites.In response to concerns about “worthless or empty licenses” across Turkey, Giuseppe Farina, Enel’s Representative for Turkey said, “Any business activity includes a certain degree of risk.”The difference, according to Farina, is rooted in Enel’s unique experience in geothermal energy, while also bearing in mind that not all licenses are of the same quality.“Enel Green Power has been operating in the geothermal industry for over a century and has experienced a solid background in identifying those licenses with a higher potential and with better development conditions,” he told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review.The new agreement on the exploration of geothermal sites in western Turkey was confirmed on Jan. 24 between Italian energy giant Enel and Turkish Meteor.The venture will provide research and exploration of 142 geothermal sites in Turkey, while securing collaboration from Turkish partners and the government alike.Although specialists have questioned the profitability and quality of recently purchased geothermal sites, Enel expressed strong optimism about its business purchase in a recent interview with the Daily News.“The Turkish market is not that different from other geothermal markets. Licenses to exploit geothermal energy can be of different kinds and with different potentials,” said Farina.“We do not believe that all the leases are of the same quality, but as a result of over a hundred years of experience in geothermal energy, we will probably be able to pick up the most promising ones,” he told the Daily News.Experts have previously expressed serious concerns about the geothermal reserves, pointing to the unviable nature of many sites and worthlessness of licenses.“The sheer majority of geothermal sites are low-grade resources that could not be used for power generation,” said Ümran Serpen, professor at the Istanbul Technical University.There are so many of those worthless licenses and there are people who are eager to market them and few have made handsome profits by simply marketing a few licenses,” he told the Daily News.One of the main factors cited by Enel for investing in Turkey has been the passing of new energy laws put forward in 2007 and 2010 by the Turkish government.“The new Turkish law on renewable energy is promising enough for starting up the process, even if the tariff is slightly below what’s expected,” said Farina.However, as a result of new legal incentives to invest in renewable energy, the prices have fallen to a reasonable level, said Farina.“In the past years we decided not to participate in tenders, because their mechanism of offer created an over-payment on the leases,” he told the Daily News. “We believe some of the past tenders have been awarded above the real market value.”

Italian-Turkish geothermal energy-deal 'risky-business'

2011-04-18T01:48:00.000-07:00

The recently negotiated agreement between Italian Enel Green Power and Turkish Uzun Group represents a vital step for Turkish geothermal investment, though pessimists have expressed concerns about “risky licenses.”The agreement covers more than 140 licenses, with critics pointing to risks of “unsubstantiated reserves” found in the absolutely major of the recently purchased geothermal sites.“Over 3,200 geothermal exploration licenses have been delivered, but only about 300 of them are worth something, and the sheer majority of those are low-grade resources that could not be used for power generation,” said Ümran Serpen, professor at Istanbul Technical University.“There are so many of those worthless licenses and you find people who are eager to market them and a few have made handsome profits by simply marketing a few licenses,” he told the Daily News. "I will not say that somebody is cheating Enel, but it's a risky business, and we'll see the results.”The new agreement on the exploration of geothermal sites in western Turkey was confirmed Jan. 24 between Italian energy giant Enel and Turkish Meteor, with support from the government, which plans to increase its geothermal capacity from 86 MW to 600 MW by 2015.The agreement promises the establishment of a research and exploration company in partnership with Meteor, a company that is 70 percent owned by Uzun and 30 percent by the G-Energy consultancy.The main objective will include carrying out surface and deep exploration activities with the aim of finding geothermal resources suitable for the generation of electricity and heat.The deal has promoted both confidence about Turkey’s geothermal potential with academics expressing confidence in Enel’s capabilities, while experts express concerns about extraction possibilities, based on fears of a lack of experience, unreliable consultants and monopolized sites.One of the main problems appears to be that consultants with limited specialization in energy and geothermal business have been consulting companies on sites and viability, according to Serpen.“They are planning a joint venture with some companies that are not known in the geothermal sector and not even in energy sector,” Serpen told the Daily News in an interview. “As for the lucrative licenses, they are already well known and owned by state-actors.”Other actors have expressed more optimism about the agreement, which could provide the foundation for a breakthrough in geothermal energy production across Europe and in Turkey.“Enel has decades of experience and is unlikely to take an interest in a site unless it had strong potential,” said Roland N. Horne, professor of energy resource engineering at Stanford University.“They were the first commercial developers of geothermal electricity in the world and have been generating from sources in Italy for many decades, while also expanding abroad during the past 15 years,” he told the Daily News.With a strong presence in Tuscany, Enel’s geothermal production is considered one of the oldest and largest in the world with 32 plants and a net capacity of 730MW, generating approximately 5 billion KW every year.The company has already successfully operated in the Unites States on geothermal sites, where they operate a 65MW binary cycle plant in Nevada.[HH] New energy laws, limited impactsNew Turkish laws from 2007 and 2010 were an attempt at creating a system of incentives for the production of renewable energy, through methods like a 10-year incentive plan, but have generally attracted little Turkish investment due to “underground risks” and the monopolization by the state of most “profitable licenses.”“The number of interested people in bids has decreased since the first law, because very high prices have been paid for the licenses in the bidding, which may have affected the feasibilities,” said Serpen.“There are also major underground risks and interest seems to be dying as not many seem to be buying,” he told the Daily News.The few positive aspects were tied to the fact that the electric selling tariffs may have increased the interests a bit as a consequence of the 2010 energy law promoted by government, according to experts.“It’s not common that worthless licenses are sold, but it depends on the specific laws and licensing procedures in the country,” said Philippe Dumas, manager of the European Geothermal Energy Council, during an interview with Daily News.

Turkey's EnerjiSA announces second wind plant supplier

2011-03-21T10:16:00.000-07:00

Turkey's EnerjiSA, an energy group in Sabancı Holding, has announced an agreement with Siemens for the supply of turbine and electricity equipment for its second wind plant project in the Mediterranean province of Mersin, the Dağpazarı Wind Plant.The plant, to be established in the Mut district of the province, will generate around 129 megawatts electricity annually with 13 wind turbines each having 3 megawatts power generation capacity.On average, 1 MW of power can supply electricity to as many as 300 households per year.Selahattin Hakman, Sabancı Holding energy group chairman, said that Enerjisa has accelerated its activities targeting increasing and diversifying its portfolio, and for 2015 the company aims for 5-10 percent of its total established power, which they targeted to increase to 5,000 megawatts by 2015, would be supplied by wind power plants.“We are beginning the construction of our second wind power facility on April and the Dağpazarı Wind Power Plant will begin to generate electricity in 2012.”Enerjisa opened a wind power plant in Turkey's northwestern province of Çanakkale in late February together with its partner Verbund.The 90-megawatt plant is the first of a series of wind turbines EnerjiSA is set to launch in 2011, Sabanci CEO Güler Sabancı told reporters at the time.

Turkey's Sabancı launches wind-turbine facility with Verbund

2011-02-27T10:18:00.000-08:00

Turkey's EnerjiSA, an energy group in Sabancı Holding, and its partner company Verbund on Saturday inaugurated a wind power plant in Turkey's northwestern province of Çanakkale.The 90-megawatt plant is the first of a series of wind turbines EnerjiSA is set to launch in 2011, Sabanci CEO Güler Sabancı told reporters."We are targeting to achieve 300 megawatts in wind power and soon we will launch a 100-150 megawatt project. We have confidence in Turkey's competitive energy market," Sabancı said.Austrian Verbund's CEO Johann Sereinig said the Verbund-Sabancı partnership had made the biggest amount of investment in Turkey with over 2.4 billion euros."Such powerful investments can not be made if it was not for Turkey's perfect opportunities for investment," he said.

Armani apartments in Istanbul attracting the wealthy

2011-01-28T03:51:00.000-08:00

Wealthy Turks and foreigners drawn to the idea of living in homes whose interiors are designed by Giorgio Armani have been lining up to pre-buy apartments in Istanbul’s exclusive Maçka neighborhood.

“Seventy percent of the apartments have already been sold. The other 30 percent will be sold by the end of the year,” said Vedat Aşçı, chairman of the Astaş Real Estate Investment and Tourism Incorporation, which is constructing the project in conjunction with Armani/Casa, interior design line of the Armani brand.

The project, “Maçka Residences, Interior Design by Armani/Casa,” is focusing on high-end and exclusive real estate residences.

The project was launched in May and is attracting keen interest from the wealthiest elements of society, desperate to live in a house designed by Armani.

Some 70 percent of the “Maçka Residences Interior Design by Armani/Casa” project has already been sold, with apartment prices varying between $800,000 and $6.5 million.

The project, to be completed by April 2012, will cost a total of $400 million, according to Aşçı.

The project consists of three buildings rising over the last empty land of Maçka, which sold four years ago for $40 million. Aşçı began the project in cooperation with Kempinski, one of the world’s largest hotels and residences group.

Armani, attracted by the historical fabric of the Maçka district, has accepted the invitation to join the project, Aşçı said.

Armani/Casa will add the Istanbul project to a list of already-completed residence projects in cities such as Tokyo, Dubai, Rome and New York.

Penthouses for $6.5 million

The overall project value of the new residences is $400 million, Aşçı said. Apartments will be delivered to customers by April 2012, he said.

The cost of residences will vary from between $10,000 and $16,000 per square meter, Aşçı said. “There are a total of 170 apartments and 28 penthouses in the project. We have sold 25 of a total 28 penthouses, priced up to $6.5 million in the last three months.”

Interest from the UK and Arabic countries

Foreigners have been particularly interested in the project, Aşçı said, adding that people from the United Kingdom and the Arab world will also join Turks in the Maçka Residences.

The sizes of the one-room apartments begin at 77 square meters and expand to 140, 200, 230, 260, 400 and 500 square meters.

“Our targeted group is the upper level of society. We appeal to people who love this area of Istanbul and who have lived in waterside houses before. People who will stay in these residences will have seven-star comfort,” Aşçı said.

“People buy these houses to live here, not as investments,” Aşçı said. “However, when the project is completed, the values of the properties will double. For this reason, there are some people who will buy two houses, one to live in and the other as an investment.”

Armani design attracts

The greatest reason to buy a house at the Maçka Residences is the Armani signature, Aşçı said.

People have been wearing Armani-branded clothes and bags for sometime now, Aşçı said. “Armani will create four different interior designs and the customers will be able to choose one of them.”

The price of an Armani/Casa design is two times more than the price of an apartment, Aşçı said, adding an Armani design covering one square meter costs 2,500 euros. “We attach a great importance to quality.”

“The opening of the Maçka Residences will be celebrated with a party attended by Giorgio Armani,” Aşçı said.

A total of 600 people are currently working on the project, Aşçı said. “However, this figure will increase to nearly 1,500 or 2,000 people in the future.”

When the project is completed the premises will accommodate a spa, fitness facilities, shops and restaurants. The residences will also have exclusive services such as concierge, valet parking and exclusive transportation facilities.

From the Bosphorus: Straight - Caution warranted on ‘housing bubble’

2011-01-28T03:49:00.000-08:00

As the old adage says, “If something appears too good to be true, it probably is.” We are optimistic by nature. But prudence still suggests caution.

Which is why we react with caution to the recent and much-touted report by the Global Property Guide that Turkey is the “most attractive property market” in Europe. The report gushes that foreigners can not only sweep up deals in Turkey, but can also benefit from Turkish bank loans.

Yes, Turkey is “under-leveraged” in terms relative to more mature markets. Yes, housing credits in Turkey, at roughly 5 percent of GDP, are far lower than in fully developed economies where they typically run to 100 percent or more of GDP. Perhaps we really are in the sweetest housing and real estate market in the world. The spate of building, the skylines dotted with construction cranes and the advertising for new housing developments certainly support such optimism.

But caution should reign. Thus we think the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency, or BRSA, made the right decision last week when it put a brake on loans. As of Jan. 1, housing loans from banks will not be allowed to exceed 75 percent of the value of property being purchased. In the case of commercial real estate, this cap is set at 50 percent. BRSA is mulling further measures, including cuts in tax incentives to real estate investment trusts, which dominate large apartment complex construction.

We also note the warning last Friday from the IMF that rapid growth of housing loans poses a risk if “left unchecked.” Turkey’s overall growth this year is expected to be in the range of 8 percent. But housing credits are expected to have risen over the same time by 28 percent.

It is worth remembering that before the world economy effectively imploded in 2007 over a housing bubble in the United States, the U.S. real estate market was full of enthusiastic buyers, sellers and lenders. Now we know better.

It is worth remembering that Spain, the largest of Europe’s deeply troubled economies, is staring at economic wreckage largely blamed on an overheated real estate market. The country’s banking sector has $240 billion in “problematic exposure” out of a total of $580 billion invested in housing and real estate development.

The president of one real estate developers association, Turgay Taneş, may be correct that the sector needs and can sustain further development. And he may also be correct that curtailment of the boom in construction will ultimately harm consumers. Maybe.

But we think the more serious threat to Turkish consumers is a return of the “boom-and-bust” cycles that have characterized Turkey’s economy over the past half century. It may be that the near-miraculous rise of Turkey’s housing sector is a sure thing. But let’s make sure. The caution of BRSA and the IMF is worthy of emulation elsewhere among government regulators.

Turkish-style green certificate to be launched

2011-01-28T03:47:00.000-08:00

Energy-hungry Turkey is eager to adopt green building certificates, but the existing international options might not be suitable for the country’s specific conditions, an expert warns. The Environment-Friendly Green Buildings Association is working on creating a Turkey-specific certificate based on the global BREEAM certificate

Sensitivity concerning green buildings in Turkey has increased, encouraging the country to produce its own certificate.

A top executive of the Environment-Friendly Green Buildings Association, or ÇEDBİK, said each country differs by its climate, geography, energy consumption and cultural structure. The association is working to produce a green building certificate suited for Turkey, as it thinks efficiency of global certificates such as BEES, LEED, BREEAM and CASBEE may be limited.

ÇEDBİK, which began studies in October using the British-based Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method, or BREEAM, as an example, aims to prepare Turkey’s own green building certificate within three years.

“The existing certificates in their current conditions can affect Turkey’s construction sector only at minimum levels,” said Duygu Erten, vice chairwoman of ÇEDBİK. “Besides, there are some differences between [current] green building certificates. For this reason, the most appropriate one for Turkey should be chosen. We will take BREEAM as a model, since it is similar to European Union standards.”

BREEAM, a system that measures sustainability of new non-domestic buildings, implements a rating system to certify buildings as passing, good, very good, perfect and top-of-the-line. Until now, some 116 buildings have been certificated among 714 registered buildings.

BREEAM is attempting to adapt its circumstances in the energy industry to European Union’s Energy Performance Certificate, or EPC, Erten said.

Abundance of abbreviations

The most common green building certificates all over the world are the BEES, BREEAM, CASBEE, ECO-QUANTUM, ECOPROFILE, GBC, GREENSTAR, LCAid, LEED and SBtool certificates. These certificates have a large area of use, from cold climates of North America to the Mediterranean countries experiencing four seasons in one year. Many of the countries generate a special model by making some arrangements on a given certificate they deem closest to their country’s specific conditions.

The BREEAM’s adaptation studies are still ongoing in 15 countries. The countries are shaping the certificates in accordance with their own resources and geographic positions.

According to ÇEDBİK’s studies, in Turkey’s special certification process, earthquake parameters will also be added. Noting that such a certificate system will be more valuable for Turkey, Erten said: “Increasing the allocation points of water and energy resources will be necessary. Since green materials are constricted in Turkey, their allocation points will be low. We want to make a Turkish contribution to BREEAM. We plan to include the home office concept by providing credits in the certificate.”

Istanbul Mega-Project Signals Rising Housing Market Confidence

2011-01-28T03:44:00.000-08:00

The announcement that the sale of residences has begun at a landmark US$2.5bn mixed-used development project, under construction in the centre of Istanbul, highlights the momentum now building in Turkey's residential construction market. BMI notes that following the economic downturn, the alignment of key factors such as robust economic performance, rising housing loans and a stable banking sector with strong population pressure and tourism growth is fuelling expectations of a housing boom.

The Zorlu Centre mega project is a 102,000m2 mixed use development and the first of its kind in the country. Indeed, the existence of such a flagship project will add to Istanbul's attractiveness to international developers -- particularly those in the Middle East and UAE, where such multi-purpose developments have proliferated in recent years, but where real estate opportunities remain muted.

The demand levels for residences from the project will be a useful bellwether for gauging market sentiment, with foreign investors likely to be watching closely. BMI expects strong demand given both the strategic location and high profile nature of the project. The residential development will consist of 584 luxury residences, ranging from 117m2 to 733m2, with prices starting from US$9,500 per m2. The project will also include a shopping centre with nearly 200 stores as well as a 50,000m2 culture and arts centre, 22,000m2 of office space and a five-star hotel.

Having experienced a deep contraction of nearly 25% year-on-year (y-o-y) in real terms over 2009, we anticipate a strong rebound of 4.5% real growth in Turkey's residential and non-residential construction industry value in 2010. Indeed, we are increasingly upbeat about the prospects for the residential construction sector as the necessary foundations for a strong and sustainable housing market appear to be falling into place.

Underpinned by a strong macroeconomic outlook and a stable, well capitalised banking sector, consumer loans and, notably, housing loan volumes are on the rise, opening up the housing sector to the rising and increasingly affluent population. Indeed, a strengthening middle class should allow banks to be more aggressive in their lending practices as they compete for greater market share, which will further open up the market to those previously unable to access the mortgage market.

Improvements in lending will therefore reduce financial risks for developers who may have previously been deterred by such weaknesses. Indeed, with a depressed European housing market and a Middle East real estate market still in varying stages of recovery, Turkey is a BMI top pick for the region. Our bullish forecasts reflect this attractive outlook, predicting 5.7% y-o-y between 2010 and 2014.

Green Building Middle East Exhibition and Global Summit

2011-01-13T23:10:00.000-08:00

Green Building Middle East - The region's only dedicated exhibition and global summit for the sustainable design and construction for the built environment.

Increasing globalization of construction has given greater international influence to leading architects and designers, as well as developers of new technologies. There are architectural companies now operating through-out the world helping to bring new standards into countries. Once a technology has proved itself in one place, it will soon be adopted elsewhere. A lot of these architects are active in the Middle East, which is starting to become a testing ground for many new technologies.

The UAE's Chamber of Commerce and industry has said that the green market will double from US$1.37 trillion a year at present to US$2.74 trillion by 2020.

Green Building Middle East provides the platform for your company to prove that your technologies can meet the regions energy efficiency targets. Exhibiting Companies are taking a multidisciplinary, holistic approach to satisfy the demand from the regions developers for energy-efficient green technologies in these emerging markets. Abu Dhabi plans to generate 7% of its primary energy production via renewable sources by 2020.

Green Build Middle East Summit

The conference will bring together a selection of the worlds top sustainable building experts to discuss in detail the practices, materials and initiatives that can be implemented or utilised on construction sites across the Middle East.

Abu Dhabi has been at the forefront of the regions sustainability industry, with a plethora of construction firms embracing eco-conscious business models, and with projects such as Masdar City demonstrating the emirates commitment to developing and utilising green technologies.

With the world looking at Abu Dhabi's ambitious construction sector to lead the sustainable movement, there is no better place than the Green Building Middle East Summit to discover the technologies and practices that can push the Middle East to the forefront of green construction revolution. Click here for more information.

The Arabian Construction Week Fair was very well organized, and the visitors we received at our booth were quality contacts. The venue, The Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Center is one of the finest venues in the world for Trade Shows and the regional construction market of the G.C.C. is one of the top three global markets for construction related products. Our company will be adding this show as one of our mandatory Trade fairs to attend every year.

TGBC (CEDBIK) celebrated World Green Building Week

2011-01-13T22:55:00.000-08:00

Wednesday, 08 December 2010 00:32 TGBC (CEDBIK) celebrated World Green Building Week. The Turkish Green Building Council (CEDBIK) organized a series of events during World Green Building Week. On 30th of September, CEDBIK hosted a VIP reception at Istanbul Congress Center in order to raise awareness about the green building week. Authorities from government and private sector, media representatives, and CEDBIK members attended the reception. During this reception, CEDBIK authorities gave many interviews and CEDBIKs communication firm will release a press release. The reception has coincided with the first day of Buildist - a construction materials fair/conference. As part of the Buildist Conference, CEDBIK organized LEED Associate Exam preparation and BREEAM trainings. Besides this, CEDBIK held a seminar series called CEDBIK-Arena for 3 days. The series consists of panels about green sector including sustainable buildings and technology, innovative system and materials, ecology and media, sustainable architecture and ethics, ecology and wellbeing, sustainability and politics, ecologic crisis etc. Furthermore, CEDBIK members have participated in the World Green Building Week by attending CEDBIK-ARENA (Greenbuild part of the conference).
TGBC (CEDBIK) published the second edition of its magazine EKOYAPI in October. The main subject of this issue is green schools, new standards in schools and FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified wood. Details about many international projects, news about CEDBIK and its members took part in this issue.
TGBC (CEDBIK) organised a panel in Green Facilities Conference on October 5-6th. During the Green Facilities Conference, a panel is organized by CEDBIK. In this panel, Vice President of CEDBIK and representatives of two CEDBIK Board members gave presentations. The main subject of the panel was management of green projects. In the panel project phases, project planning and management of LEED projects were discussed.
TGBC (CEDBIK) organised meeting for Certification Committe on October 13th and November 11th. CEDBIK organised two meetings for the certification committee which is formed by professional BREEAM Assessors. The major item was the next step which is BREEAM adaptation meetings of certification committee members with the advisory committee members. The members, target of the meetings, role of the academicians were discussed in the meetings. Members from academia and industry are attending these meetings.
TGBC (CEDBIK) and JOTUN organised meeting for new product launching on October 20th. The focus of the meeting was an ecological dye launching. In this meeting CEDBIK coordinator gave a presentation focusing on CEDBIK mission, vission, organization and activities. Also, he mentioned about green building certification systems. Afterwards CEDBIK member, Jotun representative educated everyone about the properties of ecological dye, manufacturing process, quality tests etc.
TGBC (CEDBIK) organised LEED Associate Exam training for 2 full days on October 23rd and November 6th. CEDBIK ran LEED course focusing on the main evaluation criteria of LEED including sustainable sites, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, water efficiency and Indoor Air Quality. Each session was delivered by a professional LEED AP. The education was very successful as indicated in the surveys conducted throughout the course. 45 people attended the course and a certificate of attendance was given to those who participated in the course which will also serve as one of the prerequisites required for entering the LEED Green Associate Exam. The TGBC will continue running similar courses in the future and has opened up a pre-registration corner for it in its website.
TGBC (CEDBIK) signed Memorandum of Understanding with Germany GBC (DGNB) on November 25th. CEDBIK and DGNB signed the Memorandum of Understanding to work together about certification systems, trainings etc.
TGBC (CEDBIK) organised Publication Committee meeting on November 29th. CEDBIK organised a meeting for the publication committee to specify the main subjects, content, strategy for the 4th edition of EKOYAPI.
TGBC (CEDBIK) acquired 3 new members. Among the new members, one of them is Designcase Architecture, Planning, Sustainability which is a sustainable architecture company and the other one is UCM Kompozit Yapı Malzemeleri which manufactures composite construction materials. Also, EE İstanbul Proje ve Danışmanlık which is a project consultancy company became a CEDBIK member.

NGO installs solar energy panels to protest nuclear plant

2010-12-16T13:30:00.001-08:00

Greenpeace has continued its anti-nuclear power plant campaign in the southern province of Mersin by installing solar energy panels on a mid-size mosque to show that renewable energy methods, if used properly, are enough to meet Turkey’s energy demands.

The international NGO’s Turkey branch organized a public event to launch the installation of solar energy panels on a mosque in the town of Büyükeceli, neighboring Mersin’s Akkuyu district, where Turkey’s first nuclear power plant is currently being constructed. Following the ceremony, locals were offered fresh orange juice from a fruit juicer powered with solar energy. The demonstration came about with technical support from the Solar Energy Industrialists Association (GENSED) and was also attended by Greenpeace activists who are currently facing trial for organizing and participating in demonstrations that went on for 10 days in Ankara a few months ago. Greenpeace Mediterranean Project Coordinator Alidost Numan said renewable energy methods are sufficient for Turkey and are also beneficial for its labor market because solar energy production creates eight times more employment than nuclear energy. “If the government opts for subsidizing photovoltaic solar systems, which would have the same power production capacity instead of building this nuclear power plant here, 120,000 new, clean and ‘qualified’ jobs would be created,” he said.

What can Turkey Learn from Other Wind Energy Firms ?”

2010-12-16T12:49:00.000-08:00

Yet another Energy Conference was held in Istanbul, called Wind Summit Turkey on November 11 and 12. The conference, organized by Investment Support and Promotion Agency (ISPAT) of Turkey in partnership with ICSME from China, Noppen from Shangai, and Eurosolar Turkey, was held at Hyatt Hotel .

There were close to 50 participants from Government Institutions, Universities, Turkish Wind Energy Association Wind Energy Investors and Businesssman’s Association, including Secretary Metin Atamer, and representatives of private companies and Tanay Uyar, the President of Eurosolar Turkey and also the moderator of the Summit.

There were close to 20 presentations on various aspects of wind energy developments in Turkey with with emphasis on investment and technology and some reference to Solar Energy also. During the first day, presentations covered wind energy developments worldwide and wind farms in Turkey, foreign direct investment and wind energy regulations. Suzlon representative in Turkey spoek about wind energy in Turkey from Suzlon’s point of view, a manufacturer of wind turbines..

The second day presentations included lessons learned and Chief Business Development Officer of EDP Renovavels spoke on ”What can Turkey Learn from Other Wind Energy Firms”. He presented the following table on the installed capacity of wind power plants in various Europen countries as of end of 2009:

Germany 25,777 MW

Spain 19,140 MW

France 4,402 MW

Denmark 3,452 MW

Portugal 3,535 MW

Greece 1,087 MW

Turkey 880 MW (Approximate. Turkey was not included in the table, but in 2010 the figure is over 1,200 MW)

Metin Atamer, who has been involved in reneweable energy for 17 years (that magic number) since 1993, spoke about ”Deviation from the Renewables” and stated that there are many issues in the sector. Metin Atamer is considered one of the pioneers in the wind energy sector in Turkey and has interest in several operating wind power plants, including the 36.4 MW İntepe project near Canakkale.. He critized the postponement of the new Renewables Law for a third time which was discussed in the Parliament last week, lamenting that all of their efforts have gone down the drain. He outlined the steps that should be taken in order to advance the development of new wind power plants in Turkey including overcoming the official formalities and increasing the transmission line capacities. Atamer also discussed a suggested action plan for renewables to include the following steps:

1. Establish targets for 2020

2. Establish strategy for the target

3. Action items

At the end of his presentation, Atamer mentioned that he has written a book on Turkey which includes some of the problems that he faced in the energy sector, showing a copy of ”Memleketim Uzerine.”

There were also presentations on the technical aspects of current turbine design and the local manufacture of components for wind power equipment. Soyut, a local manufacturer of small wind turbines with plans for larger turbines had a stand. Tibet Makine had an excellent presentation with a video showing the history of the company and manufacture of bearings sold in Turkey and Europe as well. The establishment of local industry that manufactures steel towers, turbines and many components for the wind power plants is very important and it is pleasing to see the advancement in this area.

Notes. Other energy conferences, symposiums and meetings held recently included, InternationaI Energy Congress, Ankara, Oct 21-22, 2010, Waste Technology Sympoisum, İstanbul, November 4-5, 2010. (2) A Summit book was distributed which includes all of the presentations.

By Yüksel Oktay

Denmark eyes wind energy market in Turkey for trade and investment

2010-12-16T12:25:00.000-08:00

“With a population of 72 million, Turkey is a very significant consumer market for our export-oriented economy,” said Steen Hommel, department head at The Trade Council attached to the Danish Foreign Affairs Ministry. “As our economy is heavily related to exporting Danish goods to generate income back at home and sustaining the social security system, we need to find new emerging markets. Turkey definitely fits that target profile,” he added.

Denmark’s export-dependent economy has been hit hard by the world economic crisis, suffering its deepest recession in more than four decades with a 4.3 percent contraction in its gross domestic product (GDP) last year. Exports declined by 10.7 percent last year with a 16.7 percent drop in industrial products. Though the recession is officially over for Denmark today, the economy still lags behind the pace that global trade is picking up. It recovered half of the original decline in exports and stabilized, more or less, but the prospects are still not encouraging for the government.

Looking for more trade

“That is why it is so vital that we have to produce trade to generate income,” said Claus Hermansen, minister counselor at the Foreign Affairs Ministry for energy and environment. Hermansen, who is also team leader for energy and environment at The Trade Council, part of the Foreign Ministry with 380 specialists working in 86 missions abroad, is very keen to exploit newly developing opportunities in renewable energy in Turkey. “We will cooperate with the Turkish government and state institutions on sharing our expertise in cutting-edge renewable technologies,” he underlined.

Denmark is well known for its leading role as a market player in renewable technologies especially in wind and biomass. It generates about one-fifth of its electricity production from harnessing wind power, built both on land and offshore, making Denmark the world leader in wind energy. “The Danish manufacturers have a market of 30 percent of the world market in wind power products,” said Maj Held Sallingboe, communication manager with the Danish Energy Industries Federation, Denmark's largest trade organization for energy technology companies.

While Danish company Vestas is the world's biggest wind turbine manufacturer, state-owned DONG Energy operates a 209 megawatt (MW) offshore wind farm called Horns Rev 2 in the North Sea. DONG also plans to build larger wind farms, one with a 400 MW power capacity and another with a 630 MW capacity.

Today there are close to a thousand companies actively working in clean-tech industries, offering employment to 60,000 people. “A large proportion of these companies are extremely reliant on export markets -- with export ratios at more than 90 percent,” said Hermansen. Though the largest market is the European Union, 20 percent of Danish products go to non-EU countries. The export of energy and environmental technologies was worth 8.6 billion euros in 2008 and is expected to be over or around the same ballpark figure for last year as well.

“While the Danish clean energy sector receives a share of 11 percent in total exports, the wind industry share alone stands at 8.5 percent in the overall export portfolio,” Sallingboe points out, stressing that the Danish wind industry is a model of how to translate a green energy strategy into a more nature-friendly environment. The government is already committed to a goal for renewable energy constituting at least 30 percent of gross energy consumption in 2025.

Eyes on Turkey

“We are looking into more secure markets because of the economic crisis that took its toll on 24,000 people employed in the wind industry in the country,” said Jens Holst-Nielsen, senior advisor with the Confederation of Danish Industry, which represents 11,000 companies across the country. Turkey, with its great potential for wind energy and new legislation on the horizon offers great opportunities for Danish companies that want to sell equipment, technology and expertise.

The Trade Council's liaison officer in the Danish Consulate General in İstanbul, Seda Kayrak, says many companies from Denmark are interested in the Turkish renewables market. Some of them will be participating in the Danish World Wind Energy Conference & Exhibition to be held in İstanbul from June 15 to 17.

On Nov. 1, 2007, the Energy Market Regulatory Agency (EPDK) issued a new call for license applications for wind farms. In just one day, they received a record number of 756 wind power plant applications totaling 78,000 MW -- about twice the existing total energy supply in Turkey -- but since then none of these projects have been granted a license.

Many foreign and domestic companies have shown quite an interest in the renewable energies market in Turkey, but they are holding off their investments until legislative changes are approved by the Turkish Parliament, making clear what government subsidies would be there in terms of price guarantees.

Experts argue that Turkey, which relies heavily on imported energy resources, has a huge potential for wind power, putting estimates from 50,000 to as high as 150,000 MW in electricity generation. The European Wind Energy Association has estimated that Turkey could meet 20 percent of its electricity demand from wind power with a target capacity of 20,000 MW, even assuming an average 8 percent annual growth in power consumption. Today it has the 13th highest wind power capacity in Europe, and it could very well position itself as one of the top three biggest wind energy producers in Europe in the near future.

So far only about 1,000 MW of capacity is generated by wind farms in operation in Turkey, accounting for 1 percent of the total electricity consumed. Turkey currently ranks 19th in terms of its global wind power capacity. Only around 30 percent of the total energy demand is met by domestic sources, mostly from hydro-power and coal-fired plants. The Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources has set a target of up to 20,000 MW of wind energy by 2023.

A number of Turkish companies, acting alone or in joint ventures with foreign partners, have already started constructing wind farms, and many others have expressed a desire to invest in wind energy. Just last week Turkish renewable energy company Gama Enerji A.Ş. announced it would establish two new wind farms in Turkey before the end of 2011. The company received a 44 million euro loan from the Turkish Industry and Development Bank (TSKB) to finance the building of the two new farms, located in the western provinces of Çanakkale and İzmir.

TSKB General Manager Halil Eroğlu said they have received loan applications for 200 renewable energy projects in Turkey thus far and that 83 of these projects have already been given financial support by the TSKB. “These 83 projects cost $4.1 billion in total, and we have provided $3.1 billion of this amount,” he stated. The European Investment Bank (EIB) also allocated a total of some 300 to 400 million euros to renewable energy projects in Turkey.

Global players have also shown interest in the Turkish market. One current example is the US renewable energy developer Renewable Energy Systems (RES), which entered the Turkish wind power market last year with the acquisition of a 500 MW portfolio of power projects worth 750 million euros. The projects, which are at different stages of development, are due to be completed over the next three to four years and are supported by the Turkish Investment Support Promotion Agency.

Hamburg-based company REpower Systems AG announced in April that it had agreed to contract out wind turbines to Turkey-based Al Yel Elektrik, a subsidiary of Akuo Energy SAS. This is to be the first time in which REpower will supply turbines to Turkey. The turbines will generate a total of 148.28 MW and will result in REpower's “biggest wind farm in Europe to date.”

Danish company Vestas also announced in April that it had received an order from Turkey's Galata Wind Energy Ltd. for the Sahres wind project. Vestas will deliver 31 V90-3.0 MW wind turbines starting in the fourth quarter of 2010. The project is expected to be completed by mid-2011.

Legal hurdles

Industry advocacy groups argue that legislative complications put the brakes on tapping into renewable energy resources in Turkey. Lack of a clear regulatory framework would deter some investors from committing, while the delay in handing out licenses has put off large investment projects.

Although the Energy Market Regulatory Agency (EPDK) claims regulations are not yet ready and that legislation is still pending at the Environment Commission in Parliament, industry observers claim the pricing controversy is hampering the passage of legislation. According to them, the problem centers around the uncertainty regarding pricing. The current law on electricity production from renewable sources guarantees that the government will buy this electricity at a price of 5 to 5.5 euro-cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for all types of renewable energy. This implies that if the producers cannot find buyers in the market, the government is willing to present itself as a buyer.

Industry advocacy groups argue this guaranteed price is significantly lower than the free market price of 7 euro-cents per kWh, which makes it difficult for renewable energy projects to obtain credit. A new bill guarantees a price of 8 euro-cents per kWh for electricity produced from wind, but it was not advanced to the floor for a vote because of a disagreement amongst Cabinet ministers over subsidies. Legislators are working on an updated proposal that would reduce the guaranteed price by 1 or 2 euro-cents.

Natural gas contracts hampering renewables’ chance

Of course Turkey’s commitment to purchase a certain amount of natural gas from Russia and Iran also prevents renewable technologies from developing. The so-called “take or pay” agreements on natural gas that the state-owned Turkish Pipeline Corporation [BOTAŞ] has with these countries reduces the incentive for the government to move forward because according to the terms of the contract, Turkey has to pay for a particular amount even if it does not use it.

In November 2008 BOTAŞ was forced to pay $704 million to Iran for unused natural gas, and it is predicted that the total cost of the “take or pay” condition will total $1.5 billion for the last two years. More electricity available from renewable energy sources would mean lower gas imports for the generation of electricity and even bigger losses for BOTAŞ.

Turkey is currently renegotiating these contracts to make them more flexible and planning to move away from natural-gas-fired plants to renewable and nuclear power plants in the medium and long term. It is facing serious challenges in satisfying its growing energy demand as the country’s electricity consumption is increasing by an average of 8-9 percent every year.

It is also a security issue for Turkey as it has very limited oil and gas reserves. Building plants on renewable energy resources means curbing dependence on imported gas from Russia and Iran, thereby making Turkey more independent. What is more, EU hopeful Turkey would also bring its standards in line with European norms and upgrade its environmental policy. Ankara also ratified the Kyoto Protocol as an Annex I country, putting pressure on policymakers to place more emphasis on the role of renewables in the country’s future energy mix.

Nordex: Order for 45 MW wind farm in Turkey

2010-11-30T04:31:00.000-08:00

Hamburg, 23 November 2010.

Business is booming for Nordex Enerji A.S. The latest order obtained by the Turkish subsidiary of Nordex SE is for the supply of 18 machines for the “Susurluk” wind farm. The farm is owned by Iltek Iletisim, the energy subsidiary of the Eksim Group, which invests in projects in the renewables sector in Turkey.

Eksim already owns a 63 MW operating hydroelectric power station in the Black Sea region of Turkey and has seven licences for wind farms with a total capacity of 246 MW. “Susurluk” is the first wind project to be built. Nordex will be installing the turbines in the province of Balikesir in the coming weeks at elevations of between 320 and 470 metres. In order to make optimal use of the wind here the customer decided to purchase 15 N100/2500 turbines and three N90/2500 machines. These are expected to generate 145 gigawatt hours of clean energy a year and can power more than 70,000 Turkish households. The capacity factor is approximately 38 percent.

Nordex plans to hand over the wind farm to the Eksim Group as early as spring 2011.

Reference: http://www.nordex-online.com/en/news-press/news-detail.html?tx_ttnews[tt_news]=2119&tx_ttnews[backPid]=1&cHash=c34f8a1efe

Eksim signs huge wind turbine lease deal

2010-11-30T04:30:00.002-08:00

Turkey’s Eksim Group has signed a 68 million-euro ($94 million) lease for turbines to be used in two wind-power projects it is developing in the country’s north.

The agreement with the Turkish bank Yapı Kredi marks the largest lease financing in Turkey’s clean energy sector to date, according to a statement on Yapı Kredi’s website. The bank purchased the turbines from Germany’s Nordex.

The lease runs for 10 years, with a two-year extension option. When it runs out, Eksim will pay a “symbolic fee” to assume ownership of the equipment, Eksim’s deputy chief executive officer Ekrem Yıldırım wrote in an e-mail Thursday.

The two 40-megawatt wind projects are in the Amasya and Tokat regions and require investment of 84 million euros, the bank said in the statement.

Construction is under way at both sites. The Amasya project is expected to go live in the third quarter of 2011, and the Tokat wind farm should begin operation the next quarter, Yıldırım said.

Eksim has seven licensed wind projects in the works and applications pending for 13 more, he said. The company eventually plans to have 1.2 gigawatts of wind capacity.

Eksim Group is mainly active in renewable energy, real estate & construction, mining, food and commodity trading. It also has investments in other countries, such as Kazakhstan and the Ukraine.

Reference :

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=eksim-signs-huge-wind-turbine-lease-deal-2010-11-11

Minister: Renewables delay won’t change pricing

2010-11-30T04:30:00.001-08:00

Turkey won’t increase the prices it guarantees to buy alternative energy in draft legislation that’s before parliament, Energy Minister Taner Yıldız said.

The renewable energy law’s progress through the assembly has been delayed until after a week-long religious holiday next week, and the postponement doesn’t mean there will be a revision, Yıldız said Tuesday in comments confirmed Wednesday by his staff.

The draft guarantees a price of 5.5 euro cents (7 U.S. cents) per kilowatt-hour for wind and hydroelectric power and 10 cents for solar energy, the minister said. Companies are already investing in wind power at those levels and they are “investable figures,” he said in Ankara.

Turkey is seeking to reduce its dependence on imported gas from Russia and Iran by encouraging alternative energy production. Excluding energy, the country’s current-account last year produced a surplus of 0.5 percent of gross domestic product, or GDP, according to the Treasury. Including energy, the deficit was 2.3 percent of GDP.

Potential investors are lobbying lawmakers for prices of 7 cents for wind energy and 20 cents for solar.

Solar energy is a developing technology and the price Turkey’s setting marks a “starting point” and could be revised as the industry develops, Yıldız said.

Reference: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=minister-renewables-delay-won8217t-change-pricing-2010-11-10

GE’s Turkish unit eyes producing wind turbines

2010-11-30T04:24:00.000-08:00

As the effects of the global financial crisis wane, General Electric’s Turkish unit revisits a plan to manufacture wind turbines in the country. ‘If the number of companies that need financing through export insurers falls, then we may dust off plans to make the equipment in Turkey,’ says Mete Maltepe, the chief of GE’s local energy unit

General Electric, which intends to expand its Turkish energy business as the government sells off power assets, may revive a plan developed before the 2008 global crisis to build wind turbines in the country.

Local unit General Elektrik may start manufacturing turbines and so-called nacelle casings, with half the output likely to be sold within Turkey as the government targets a 20-fold increase in wind capacity by 2020, said Mete Maltepe, the general manager of GE Energy Turkey.

Turkish companies have been going overseas to buy wind-generation equipment because they relied on export insurers such as Euler Hermes, the world’s largest insurer of trade credit, when financing was scarce. Generators will be more likely to be bought domestically as the global recovery takes hold and more loan facilities become available, Maltepe said.

“If the number of companies that need financing through export insurers such as Hermes falls, and we do expect it to change, then we may dust off plans to make the equipment in Turkey,” he said. “We are ready for that.”

GE will expand its energy business in Turkey and keep overall investment in the nation the same even after the sale of a stake in the country’s second largest bank, Kürşat Özkan, head of GE’s Turkish operations, said Oct. 1.

GE agreed to sell 18.6 percent of Garanti Bank to Spain’s Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria for $3.78 billion as part of a global effort to reduce its financial assets.

GE wants to generate “significant” business as Turkey increases wind power capacity to 20,000 megawatts by 2020 from less than 1,000 megawatts now, Maltepe said. Currently GE gets turbine wings and poles from Turkish producers. On average, 1 MW of power can supply electricity to as many as 300 households per year.

GE has provided about 8,000 megawatts, or 17 percent, of Turkey’s power capacity, mainly with gas and steam turbines and some wind turbines, Maltepe said. GE turbines account for about 30 percent of total generation, he said.

A planned government incentive of 5.5 euro cents per kilowatt-hour to wind power producers needs to be increased to at least 7.5 cents to justify investments, he said. The subsidy is awaiting parliamentary approval.

Wind turbine prices, which fell during the global economic crisis, have steadied and will start rising unless other, less-costly sources of renewable energy are developed, Maltepe said.

Investments in Turkey

GE Energy Financial Services bought half of Ankara-based Gama Enerji in 2007 and announced plans to invest at least $4 billion until 2015 to build 3,000 megawatts of power plants in Turkey and the Middle East. GE will invest in energy by itself or with a partner as Turkey expects to double its national power capacity to 90,000 megawatts in 10 years, said Özkan.

The company will seek to tap a market for the so-called smart grids that may be worth $2 billion after the government sells off electricity distribution assets, Maltepe said. The government will raise as much as $16 billion from the sale of 20 electricity grids, due to be completed by the end of this year, Energy Minister Taner Yıldız said Oct. 12.

“We don’t expect new operators of the grids to immediately start seeking smart grid systems as they will first have to deal with the existing network improvements,” Maltepe said. “We are already in talks with four or five companies on this but we expect the real interest in smart grids within two years.”

Smart grids use digital technology to optimize power use. Siemens and Areva are the main competitors in this market, Maltepe said.

GE’s energy unit may buy Turkish companies that make equipment for low- and medium-voltage transmission networks, Maltepe said. “We are looking around and in talks for this, but we don’t know when the talks will conclude.”

Reference: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=ge8217s-turkish-unit-eyes-producing-wind-turbines-2010-11-10

Nordex supplies 24 large turbines to Turkey

2010-11-30T04:21:00.000-08:00

Order for turnkey project and wind farm extension

Hamburg, 26 October 2010.

Nordex has obtained the order for the turnkey installation of a wind farm in Turkey. Nordex is building the “Akres” project with 18 N90/2500 machines for Karesi Enerji, a subsidiary of the Turkish transformer manufacturer Best. In addition to this, the wind farm operator Dost Enerji has ordered six N90/2500 turbines for the extension of “Yuntdag”.

The “Akres” site is located near the city of Akhisar in the west of Turkey. Thanks to very good wind conditions, the capacity factor stands at around 42 percent. The turbines are able to produce 170 gigawatt hours of clean energy a year and supply some 90,000 Turkish households. The 45 MW wind farm is to be handed over to Karesi Enerji in summer 2011.

“Turnkey projects number among Nordex’s core competences worldwide. Now we can show what our project management is capable of in Turkey, too”, says Ayhan Gök, Nordex CEO in Turkey.

The order for the extension of the “Yuntdag” wind farm underlines Dost Enerji’s confidence in Nordex. “Yuntdag” (17 N90/2500s) had marked the start of Nordex’s entry into the Turkish market in 2007. The six machines to be added to the farm in summer 2011 provide an energy yield of 59 gigawatt hours per annum.

Reference:

http://www.nordex-online.com/en/news-press/news-detail.html?tx_ttnews[tt_news]=2106&tx_ttnews[backPid]=1&cHash=b8ddcc54ea

Is It Another Problem Waiting for Wind Energy Project Developers?

2010-11-30T04:19:00.000-08:00

20 September 2010, by Middle East wind energy editor H. Erkoc

Turkish wind energy developers who have been expecting to be granted their generation licences in the last quarter of 2010 since November 2007 have been struggling with a new problem lately.

The projects cannot be licensed because they cannot get approval from Turkish General Staff on the grounds that the wind turbines built may interfere with radar and military monitoring systems.

Although it has been stated by several authorities and technical experts that wind turbines do not cause interference with radar systems more than 12 wind farms in western part of Turkey with a total capacity of 460 MW are waiting for their approval letters from General Staff. GS states that they need report of The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey – TÜBİTAK regarding the issue and that official request had been sent.

Since wind farm licensing process in Turkey requires positive opinions from all related authorities, developers who cannot get this approval are not able to start construction. Also because of late response time of General Staff to official enquiries of developers makes the situation worse than it should be.

Despite the country’s potential and willingness of both foreign and domestic investors, Turkish wind industry is not able to kick start because of legislative problems. The slow processing times within governmental institutions and offices, lack of precise technical knowledge partly due to the industry’s being relatively new in Turkey is keeping the industry as a toddler and it cannot stand on its feet, which seems to be the same for near future too.

Wind Energy News

332 million kWh electricity from new wind farm

Agaoglu Group of Companies which is operating in many sectors ranging from real estate to tourism, and now wind energy, started construction of a new wind farm in Bandirma which is expected to generate 332 million kWh electricity annually.

http://www.sirkethaberleri.com/basin-bultenleri/agaoglu-sah-ruzg%C3%A2r-enerjisi-santraliyle-yilda-332-milyon-kwh-enerji-uretecek-50802

Turkey will be connected to European grid through smart grid technology

Turkey will be connected to European electricity grid through smart grid technology of GE and will be able to trade electricity with Europe after Spetember 2010.

http://www.yenienerji.info/?pid=23752

Soyutwind to fund wind energy projects with their American business partner

Soyutwind, a company of Soyut Holding, which is also a wind turbine manufacturer, will be funding wind energy investments in Turkey together with their business partner. The USA leg of the business will be an investment company and the pre-agreements have been signed.

http://www.guneshaber.net/haber/770-sirket-haberleri-abd39li-ortagiyla-ruzgar-yatirimlarini-fonlayacak.html

Minister of Energy expecting a wind turbine industry in Turkey

Minister of Energy Hilmi Güler says that the wind turbine industry already has a market in Turkey and it can become as strong as automotive industry in Turkey.

http://www.haberler.com/ruzgar-tribunu-ile-yeni-bir-otomotiv-sektoru-haberi/

Wind will make coffee

Starbucks coffee will use renewable based energy in their 63 shops throughout Turkey. Starbucks will be buying their electricity from Akenerji through an interconnected system.

http://www.gazete5.com/haber/starbucks-ruzgar-enerjisini-kullanacak-12-agustos-201-34742.htm

Renewable energy investments to ramp up

2010-11-30T04:17:00.000-08:00

Hyped up interest in renewable energy investments may be perceived as a sign of Turkish business world attaching importance to climate change. Next year, the Energy Market Regulatory Authority expects to see private sector investments worth 3.5 billion Turkish Liras to renewable energy. The energy ministry aims to increase renewable energy’s share in Turkey’s total energy resources to at least 30 percent by 2023.

his year some 5 billion Turkish Liras worth of private sector investments will be added to Turkey’s energy market, said Hasan Köktaş, chairman of the Energy Market Regulatory Authority, or EMRA.

Facilities generating 2,833 megawatts energy stepped into the local energy market last year, said Köktaş on Sunday. Some 1,400 megawatts of that figure was from natural gas, while 1,000 megawatts was from renewable energy sources, including hydroelectric and wind. “This figure is the highest attained for the past seven years. In 2010 we aim to surpass the 2009 figure.”

Based on the reports received by the authority, some 3.5 billion liras out of the total 5 billion liras investment, which will be implemented by the private sector, will be on renewable energy, Köktaş said, adding that the remaining 1.4 billion will be on natural gas resources.

In 2010, 3,400 megawatts of installed capacity is expected to step in to the market, said Köktaş. The annual energy production of the facilities will be 21 billion kilowatt per hour, he added. Besides providing energy, newly established facilities will also help increase employment opportunities, Köktaş said.

“We have started on sight inspection for the energy investments last year. We will continue to do so starting April. We will visit the development sites of the companies that have received licenses. The licenses of the companies that have not made the investments they have promised will be canceled,” said Köktaş.

At a separate meeting in Ankara on Sunday, Energy Minister Taner Yıldız, told the members of the Parliament that the ministry was aiming to increase renewable energy’s share in Turkey’s energy resources to at least 30 percent by 2023. Natural gas’ share in the country’s energy recourses is foreseen to be lowered to below 30 percent, he added.

EMRA provided licenses for wind turbines that will have 3,350 megawatts of installed capacity, Yıldız said. In 2002, Turkey had next to none wind energy recourses, he said. In 2009, wind energy capacity of the country reached 802 megawatts, Yıldız said and added that figure will increase to 2,200 megawatts within the next two years.

As per November 2009, Turkey added wind turbines with installed capacity of 374 megawatts. Hydroelectric power plants with 564 megawatts installed capacity also stepped in by that time and geothermal energy plants with installed capacity of 47.4 megawatts were added to the country’s energy resources by November 2009.

Turkey’s installed capacity of electrical energy was 31,845 megawatts in 2002. That’s figure rose to 44,782 megawatts by 2009. Some 7,087 megawatts of that comes from projects launched and completed in that period.

Turkey's energy dependency to be solved with renewable energy

2010-11-30T04:10:00.001-08:00

Energy investments in Turkey are increasing but the country needs $100 billion more in investments by 2020, the chairman of the Istanbul Chamber of Industry said Monday.

“New investments mean new employment opportunities,” Chairman Erdal Bahçıvan said in a speech at a summit organized by the Energy Commission of the Young Businessmen Association of Turkey, or TÜGİAD, and the Istanbul Technical University-TÜGİAD Renewable Energy Platform, or TİYEP, which focused on improving collaboration between universities and industry players on energy technology.

The trend toward renewable energy is increasing, Bahçivan said, adding that fossil fuel resources have a short life span, and that price increases in oil and natural gas have forced investors toward environmentally-friendly and renewable energy resources.

The European Union aims to obtain 12 percent of its energy need from renewable energy resources, Bahçıvan said.

Meanwhile, Turkey’s energy import dependency has been increasing constantly, he said. “Turkey’s import dependency in the energy sector rose above 75 percent. Therefore, it is very important to activate local energy resources and diversify those local resources. With its seasonal and natural resources, Turkey is a good candidate to become a center of green and clean energy,” he said.

“It is claimed Turkey fails to use 55 percent its hydro-energy potential, the same way it fails to use 85 percent of its wind-energy potential. The country is also failing to benefit from its geothermal energy potential by up to 95 percent,” Bahçıvan said.

“In using local energy resources, the government, investors and universities have important tasks to complete. Public resources are not enough to maintain clean and sustainable local energy production. The government is working on important policies to increase private sector investments,” he said.

“The industry needs investments worth $100 billion by 2020. These investments will also be new opportunities in terms of providing employment,” Bahçivan said.

Turkey’s crude oil imports are expected to equal $12 billion or $13 billion in 2010, said Lütfü Küçük, chairman of TÜGİAD. In 2012 this figure is expected to become $15 billion or $16 billion, he said.

“The overall energy import costs are $34 to $35 billion this year. This figure will become about $44 in 2012 with a $10 billion increase. The budget deficit for 2010 is expected to be $50 billion. On the other hand, energy resources such as, solar, wind, geothermal and water in Turkey, are clean energy resources and are waiting to be used,” said Küçük.

“We believe the solutions to problems, such as budget deficits, borrowing need and unemployment problems, lie with the development of the renewable energy sector,” he said.

Noting that Turkish business people are eager to invest in the energy sector, Küçük said: “However, this process is about to stop because of legal incompetence and ambiguities. When the rules are not certain and there is ambiguity, it is understandable not to invest in such a sector.”

Turkish minister sees no obstacle to green EMRA projects

2010-11-30T04:06:00.000-08:00

ANKARA – Anatolia News Agency

There is no obstacle before the Energy Market Regulatory Authority, or EMRA, in licensing the renewable energy projects, according to Energy Minister Taner Yıldız, who gave a speech at the International Energy Conference in Ankara Thursday.

EMRA presented a portfolio of 1698 renewable energy projects capable in total of 31.555 MW-power-generation to the Turkish Electricity Transmission Company, or TEİAŞ and to General Directorate of Electrical Power Resources Survey and Development Administration or, EİE.

Taner Yıldız focused on ongoing renewable energy projects in his speech underlining that the ministry attached paramount importance to green energy.

“Some 27 percent of all the 207 billion KW per hour electricity consumed by Turkey comes from national and renewable energy resources,” he said, mostly referring to hydropower. He also said that the rate should be 30 percent in order to catch up with Turkey’s rapid growth.

The minister also said that in the following weeks the parliament was to take the renewable energy law discussions to its agenda and the draft was to be given the final form as quickly as possible.

Investments in energy peak

2010-11-30T03:55:00.000-08:00

Private sector investments in Turkey’s energy sector reached 3,200 megawatts by the end of October this year, according to Hasan Köktaş, chairman of the Energy Market Regulatory Authority, or EMRA.

Investors in Turkey have recently begun to show great interest in the energy sector, adding that Turkey has become a prime site for energy production. “The private sector broke a record last year by investing 2,800 megawatts in the Turkish energy sector. However, that record has been passed this year, while in the first 10 months of the year investments made by the private sector have increased to 3,200 megawatts.”

"We beat our own record," Köktaş said. “The private sector has installed additional power nearly one and half times more than the power of the Atatürk Dam, on the Euphrates River, in southeastern Anatolian Turkey,” Köktaş said. The total power of the Atatürk Dam is 2,400 megawatts.

Renewable energy resources such as hydroelectric power plants, wind farms and geothermal power constitute 40 percent of the total investments, he said.

Noting that they had licensed the private sector to install up 42,000 megawatts all over Turkey, Köktaş said that during the last two years nearly 6,000 megawatts had been added to the Turkey’s installed power, which amounts to investments worth 15 billion Turkish Liras.

Investments in İzmir

Many large energy investments are made in İzmir, Köktaş said. The Aegean region is probably Turkey’s best area to harness the energy of wind, he said. It is also the site of a new $5 billion refinery investment from Petkim, the nation’s leading petrochemical company, he said.

“We saw wind plant investments from Dost Enerji, Bilgin Enerji and Turkey’s only liquefied natural gas terminal Ege Gaz. İzmir Doğalgaz, a natural gas distribution company, invested nearly $110 million.”

Dost Enerji, a renewable energy company, aims to invest 210 million euros in wind energy. The company has a 42.5-megawatt wind farm in the İzmir district of Bergama district and a 15-megawatt facility in Urla.

“The capacity of our investment in Bergama will be increased to 57.5 megawatts. We are aiming to achieve production of 250 megawatts in the short term,” said Muzaffer Akpınar, chairman of Dost Enerji. “We also plan to construct a 400-megawatt natural gas cycle plant.”

“We want to diversify our energy portfolio,” said Vehbi Bilgin, head of the Bilgin Energy, a group active in hydro- and wind power. “We will invest nearly 250 million euros to build a 425-megawatt natural gas cycle plant in the Marmara region.”

Bilgin Eenrji has already implemented a 250-megawatt hydroelectric power plant investment strategy. “We will also invest in wind farms in the İzmir district of Çeşme,” Bilgin said.

Petkim has started $5 billion refinery investment, according to Kenan Yavuz, director general of the company. “The investment will be completed in four years. This refinery will produce Petkim’s whole raw material requirement.”

Noting that wind efficiency in the district of Aliağa is high, Yavuz said, “We have applied for a 25-megawatt investment license. Just near our dam in Petkim, in Aliağa, we will add our port, refinery and wind farms. We will produce our own water, energy and raw material.”

EUR 3.5 billion in Turkey’s renewable energy industry planned by German-Turkish Consortium

2010-11-09T07:23:00.000-08:00

The German electric utility company EnBW will invest EUR 3.5 billion in Turkey’s renewable energy industry. EnBW and its Turkish partner Borusan Holding will establish a 2,000 MW-installed power capacity to address the country’s growing power needs.

“Renewable energy sources such as wind and hydro are our current priorities”, said EnBW’s CEO Hans-Peter Villis, giving an interview to the press about their investments in Turkey. “Our wind energy plant in Bandirma has recently become operational, and the hydro plant over the Firat river will come into stream in a couple of months”, Villis told reporters, adding that Turkey’s Southeastern Anatolia region offers various investment opportunities. While EnBW is focused primarily on power production in Turkey, the company may also assess opportunities in high-voltage and power grids, according to Villis. Source: Invest in Turkey

Turkey says to make $20 bln renewable energy licensing in 4 years

2010-11-09T06:55:00.001-08:00

The Turkish energy minister said on Tuesday that Turkey would carry out a nearly 20 billion USD renewable energy licensing in the next 4 years.

Releasing a written statement on Tuesday, Turkey's energy ministry said that Energy & Natural Resources Minister Taner Yildiz had attended an informal meeting of EU's energy ministers in Brussels on September 6-7, and held a series of talks with European officials on the sidelines of the meeting.

According to the statement, during his talks with European Investment Bank (EIB) President Philippe Maystadt, Yildiz said that Turkey was eager to improve its cooperation with EIB particularly in energy projects.

Pointing to the licensings to be conducted by Turkey in upcoming years, Yildiz said EIB could make a remarkable contribution to such process.

During his talks with Nabucco Gas Pipeline International's Managing Director Reinhard Mitschek, OMV's CEO Werner Auli and Hungarian National Development Minister Tamas Fellegi, Minister Yildiz discussed the latest developments on Nabucco project and expressed his appreciation over the letter of intent recently signed as part of the project, the statement said.

Holding a bilateral meeting with the European Commissioner for Energy Guenter Ottinger as well, Yildiz said that there were no more technical obstacles hindering the opening of the energy chapter in Turkey's negotiation process with the EU.

The minister also stated during the gathering that the liberalization process in Turkey's energy sector was much better than many European countries, the statement noted.

Turkey yet to harness huge solar energy potential

2010-11-09T06:52:00.002-08:00

Turkey’s demand for electricity is increasing steadily and Turkish policymakers are eager to decrease the country’s dependence on foreign nations for the gas and oil that, among other things, fuel Turkish electricity power plants. But Turkey has yet to harness its renewable energy potential due to a lack of legislation on the issue. Only 17 percent of the 198 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electrical energy generated in Turkey in 2008 came from renewable energy sources. As for its ability to make use of its solar energy potential, the country’s total established solar energy power is less than 1 megawatt (MW).“The solar energy potential of Turkey itself is enough to meet Turkey’s overall energy needs threefold,” says Tanay Sidki Uyar, the director of Marmara University’s New Technologies Research and Application Center and vice president of the European Association for Renewable Energy (EUROSOLAR) Turkey. He stresses that there are three things needed in making use of solar energy: the source, the technology to make use of it and decision mechanisms that see renewable energy as useful and believe that it is the best solution to energy needs. “We have the sun. It shines every day, everywhere. Turkey is very lucky in this way. There is also the technology. Solar energy-related technologies have advanced in the world since the ‘80s. Now, we just lack the third step,” he says. He recalls that the renewable energy legislation that was approved by the parliamentary Energy Commission last summer has yet to be approved by Parliament.

The government characterizes the Renewable Energy Law (YEK), prepared by the parliamentary Energy Commission, as revolutionary, asserting that YEK will transform Turkey into a base for energy investment. The most important innovation brought about by the new YEK proposal is that the areas of investment in energy have been identified one by one rather than being lumped together, as was the case in the past.

Turkey currently obtains more than half of all its electricity needs from natural gas plants. With investment in renewable energy arenas, the variety of supply options would be secured.

The most recent New Energy Strategy Document states the goal of having five different sources to supply the 100,000 MW of electrical energy Turkey is predicted to need by 2023. The goal of the country is 20,000 MW in renewable energy sources in Turkey. So Turkey is aiming to reduce its dependence on natural gas and outside sources to a minimum.

However, the bill, which was expected to be on Parliament’s agenda this summer, was delayed again, which many fear may lead to Turkey missing the renewable energy train.
Kemal Ibis from the Konya-based Solimpeks Solar Energy Systems Co. -- Turkey’s top exporter of solar technologies in 2008 -- compares Turkey and Germany in their solar energy potential and their ability to harness their potential. “Turkey’s northernmost reaches receive more sunrays than Germany’s southernmost region. While Germany’s target is to meet 20 percent of its energy needs from solar energy by 2015, Turkey does not have such a serious goal. The leading reason behind this is a lack of awareness on the issue,” Ibis says.
He says Turkey’s biggest deficiency in making use of solar energy is a lack of incentives for the sector, which leads to high costs for investments in electricity-generating systems in particular.
Solimpeks emphasizes innovation in solar technologies and is hoping to sell hybrid PV-T collector solar panels (Solimpeks is the second-largest global manufacturer of the technology) to the Turkish market if the new legislation passes.

Association of Solar Electricity Producers and Photovoltaic Industrialists and Businessmen (Günese Dernegi) President Mehmet Özer also agrees that the lack of legislation deals a severe blow to the Turkish solar energy sector. Özer said, in a written statement he recently released to criticize Parliament’s failure to pass YEK, that it is difficult to understand Turkey’s failure even though the world is leaning towards renewable energy sources. Stating that Turkey relies on foreign countries for about 70 percent of its energy needs, Özer, whose association works in partnership with the European PhotoVoltaic Industry Association (EPIA) to increase solar electricity production in Turkey, said the delay in the passage of the bill discouraged players in the solar energy sector.
He also has concerns that the law will not be able to boost investments even if passed. Noting that Turkey will be still behind European Mediterranean countries such as Italy and Greece, he said the possibility that the law might born dead as well as its delay causes fear in the sector.
Sule Kulu

US Ex-Im Bank to Finance Turkish Renewable Energy Sector

2010-11-09T06:52:00.001-08:00

Under the agreement, Ex-Im Bank and the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources have agreed to share information on trade and business opportunities to facilitate sales of US goods and services offering environmental benefits to Turkey’s energy sector, including renewable energy and energy efficiency exports.
Turkey is one of nine priority countries being targeted for financing by Ex-Im Bank because of the opportunities it offers to US exporters, the bank said.

Fred Hochberg, chairman and president of Ex-Im Bank, said, ‘This agreement strengthens the long-standing partnership between Ex-Im Bank and Turkey.

‘Our goal is to finance US exports to facilitate Turkey’s economic and technological growth while supporting US jobs. Recently we have supported US exports for a Turkish scrap metal plant that produces electricity, and for a hydroelectric dam project. We want to participate in more such environmentally beneficial projects in Turkey.’
Ex-Im Bank, an independent, self-sustaining federal-government agency, provides export financing and a variety of financing mechanisms to help small- and medium-sized US businesses, export-credit insurance to protect against non-payment by foreign buyers, and loans to assist foreign companies buy US goods and services.

In fiscal 2009, Ex-Im Bank’d financing totalled $21bn. The bank has also recently provided a loan guarantee to New Jersey small business Chinook Sciences that sells equipment and technology to Turkish buyer DT Metal Geri Kazanim Teknolojileri Sanayi ve Ticaret to build an innovative plant that recycles metal and in the process recovers gas and produces electricity.

Turkey to invest $20 bln in renewable energy in 5 years

2010-11-09T06:51:00.002-08:00

Turkish energy minister said on Saturday Turkey would make investments worth 20 billion U.S. dollars in the renewable energy within five years.

Energy and Natural Resources Minister Taner Yildiz attended a meeting in central province of Kayseri.
Replying to questions of reporters, Yildiz said that they had talks with officials from Islamic Development Bank and bank officials said they could provide loans for energy investments in Turkey.

"We held talks with countries in the south of Mediterranean region on investments in the sector of energy. Other countries proposed that Turkey should plan investments to be made in the region," he said.

Yildiz said, "Turkey will make investments of 20 billion U.S. dollars in the renewable energy area within five years. The loans that will be granted by Islamic Development Bank will be of great importance."

Limak Gets 350 Million Dollars in Credit for Alkumru HEPP

2010-11-09T06:51:00.001-08:00

Limak Hydroelectric Power Plants Investments, Inc, a subsidiary of Limak Group, signed a contract for a 350 million dollar loan from two Turkish banks, Yapy Kredi and Y? Bank. This credit has a four year grace period and an eight year time loan.Limak will use this credit for the Alkumru Dam and Hydroelectric Power Plant (HEPP) investment which is located on the Botan Creek within the boundaries of the city of Siirt in the southeastern Anatolia region.

This HEPP has a total installed capacity of 267 MW and an annual power generation of 1 billion KW is projected.
Limak Chairman Nihat Özdemir stated that energy production will begin in December 2010 and the entire project is expected to be completed by May 2011. He continued to say that Limak Group has 3 HEPPs in operation and an enterprise of 9 other projects. With its 1200 MW installed capacity and 4.3 billion KW/h annual power generation, Limak will be one of the first 3 energy companies in Turkey of this scale.

Chairman Özdemir also explained that Limak Group is interested in investing in different kinds of energy undertakings in coal, natural gas, wind and solar. Additionally, they would like to have an energy distribution area to exercise their potential.

At the credit loan execution, Y? Bank’s CEO Ersin Özince said that energy projects are the banks priority. A total loan amount of 1.25 billion dollars was lent to 17 different projects undergoing at energy companies and this number will increase to 1.65 billion dollars in the next six months. Is Bank has negotiations with other companies seeking financing for energy deals.

Yapy Kredi CEO Faik Açykalyn said that until now they financed 3500 MW projects with 2.5 billion dollars and 85 percent of their loans were issued to renewable energy companies.

Turkey will be able to obtain 50% of its energy from renewable energy by 2023!

2010-11-09T06:50:00.000-08:00

According to Soner Aksoy, the president of the Turkish Parliament Industrial, Commercial, Energy, Natural Sources, Information and Technology Commission, and also the deputy who proposed the Bill of Renewable Energy, Turkey can obtain 50% of its energy consumption from renewable energy by 2023.
Soner Aksoy stated that the current law of “Renewable Energy” had been drafted in 2005 and in accordance to the knowledge of 2004, and that they drew a new bill in order to update the original bill because it did not address 2009 matters.

In contrast to the current law, this bill of renewable energy supports many different fields. In addition, different incentive systems are brought for each field, and guarantees of purchase are constituted at different rates.
Aksoy posits that this law is anticipated to be given incentives in the field of renewable energy and despite that it may be thwarted by Minister of Economy Ali Babacan on the pretense that it will upset the Turkish economic equilibrium, the law will be discussed in parliament again this August. He expressed his hopes of this law proposal being approved by parliament in the following months and then legalized.

Aksoy stated that during the same time period that the renewable energy law is expected to be issued, an extensive incentive law is also anticipated to be issued and that from this a synergy will be created. This synergy will materialize investments from domestic and foreign companies alike in Turkey in various fields of renewable energy. Thus, numerous investors in Turkey and around the world are anticipating this proposal’s approval by parliament.

The European Union raised objections to this law proposal, Aksoy said, and the reason for this objection was that, as stated in the law proposal, domestic manufacturers in the fields that will be given incentive will be supported and in addition the energy production will be supported. He stated that they could solve this matter by either obtaining approval from the EU or changing the word “domestic” to “that which is produced in Turkey” in the context of the proposal.

According to Aksoy, Turkey has a very high potential in the field of renewable energy. Turkey has a 49,000 MW potential in wind energy, and particularly in solar and hydroelectric energy, it is a country with high returns on renewable energy investments. He said by supporting this sector in Turkey, 30% of Turkey’s energy consumption could be obtained by renewable energy sources by 2023 and that 50% of energy demand can be met by renewable energy, except from large water sources.

The Only Missing Factor for Bio-ethanol Production is a Turkish Incentive Law

2010-11-09T06:49:00.004-08:00

The Bio-ethanol Manufacturers' Association of Turkey Vice President and Tezkim Agricultural Chemical Construction CEO Ahmet Tezcan declared that in order to initiate activity in the bio-ethanol sector, Tezkim (of which he is the proprietor) in Adana, Tarkim in Bursa and Çumra ?eker Factory in Konya invested approximately 125 million dollars total. However, before going into operation, they are waiting for the state to decide on the Bio-ethanol Usage Necessity Act.

Expressing that the aforementioned facilities are waiting in the wings for the Renewable Energy Law in drafting to be issued in order to move out of its present inactive state, Tezcan asserted: “When the facilities are put into operation, we will be in the position to replace 5 percent of Turkey's total gasoline consumption. If the usage share is 5 percent, we will provide an annual net contribution of 700 million lira to the state budget.”

Tezcan explained that the alternative to bio-ethanol is imported gasoline, which creates only a limited amount of employment in Turkey. However, since bio-ethanol is a product manufactured in Turkey, numerous jobs are created at all stages of its production, from the initial raw materials to its final transportation to consumers. Therefore, supporting bio-ethanol production contributes favorably to employment in Turkey.

While he was discussing that among the items on the agenda of Turkey's EU membership process that are about to be disclosed is energy, Tezcan added: “The 5.75 percent target of renewable energy set for 2020 has risen to 10 percent and this target has been made compulsory for all EU members. Moreover, in the context that we were a signing party of the KYOTO protocol, the green fuel bio-ethanol must absolutely be supported.” (AA)

Turkey's Energy Flowing into the Sea

2010-11-09T06:49:00.003-08:00

Speaking at a conference, Dogus Insaat Inc. Chairman Gönül Talu stated that renewable and indigenous energy sources such as solar, wind and geothermal should be given top priority, calling attention to the fact that currently 75 percent of Turkey’s energy is dependent on foreign suppliers.

In order to increase energy investments, Talu proposed an acceleration of privatization and said that to narrow Turkey’s energy deficit, 8 Atatürk dams, 9 Afsin-Elbistan thermal power plants and 9,700 megawatt-hour natural gas plants must be implemented within the next 8 years.

Talu posited that because river water sources have not been tapped into yet, 13 billion Euros worth of electrical energy is flowing into the sea annually. He said that they believe government subsidized pricing for electrical energy is favorable and that they expect a policy to be put into effect promptly.

Talu also noted that the much passed-due establishment of Turkey's nuclear power plants has become mandatory and, should it be necessary, that the state be involved in the development of the first power plants. (AA)

Sabanci Invests 5.5 Billion Euros to Achieve 5000 MW Capacity

2010-11-09T06:49:00.001-08:00

Sabancı Holding Energy Group Chairman Selahattin Hakman, expressing their objective of increasing their market shares in their sectors from reaching 10 percent by 2015 and then to 20 percent, stated that this will include owning at least 5 thousand megawatts of installed capacity and electricity distribution networks that can operate 6 million subscriptions.

Hakman expressed that to believe that environmental problems are alleviated because of the fall in demand of electricity during the recession would be a mistake. He explained that the decline of demand reduces prices and investments and the decrease of financial resources remove the competitiveness of renewable energy investments.

He continued to say that Turkey has not been able to create the necessary environment for investments that respond to the annual increase of demand by 6-8 percent since 2001 and, consequently, last summer Turkey seriously struggled to meet its energy demand. Moreover, since Turkey is a country with high rates of population growth and urbanization, the energy demand is ever increasing. There is a serious deficiency of supply to meet these demands, he added, and if the recession never occurred, then the demands between December and January of this year would not have been met.

Hakman underscored that there is no possibility for Turkey's supply of electricity to languish. There is an urgent need for investments in Turkey's energy production and energy plants and in order to meet the growing demand, renewable and indigenous resources must be developed immediately.

Despite the recession, Hakman said that Sabanci Holding is determinedly advancing toward its energy objectives without making any changes of plan. He stated: “EnerjiSa has energy plants working at 455 megawatts. This year we are expecting a turnover of energy production of 600 million lira. With the establishment of our planned 5 thousand megawatt power installation, starting in 2015 our turnover level will reach 6 million lira. In our capitol city this year the expected turnover from distribution is approximately 2 billion lira.”

Turkey, US could cooperate in renewable energy

2010-11-09T06:46:00.001-08:00

Sharing his views on the issue with the Anatolia news agency, Pataki, also a former New York governor, said Turkey is looking to finalize projects worth $80 billion for electricity generation within the next 10 years. Underlining that demand for energy is increasing in Turkey every passing year, he said electricity generation has come to the fore as one of the most prominent issues to be addressed in the short run.

Noting that some firms from the US are keen to enter the Turkish energy market, Pataki said the two countries could further cooperate in this field. “Both nations have intensified their quest to make better use of clean energy and we are going through an exciting period in this regard … and we have numerous opportunities ahead.”

Mentioning a recent meeting with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Pataki said Erdoğan was also aware of the current shortcomings in renewable energy. The Turkish government is enthusiastic about reducing its dependency on foreign energy sources. He emphasized that future clean energy projects will benefit both the environment and the economy in Turkey.

Renewable Energy Opportunities in Turkey

2010-11-09T06:42:00.000-08:00

Former New
York Governor George Pataki, currently counsel at
the international law firm of Chadbourne & Parke,
said that the Turkish renewable energy sector has
significant potential.
Speaking at New York’s Rockefeller Plaza, the
headquarters of the international law firm, which
has about 500 attorneys and 12 offices including
three in the U.S., Governor Pataki answered Anatolia
news agency’s questions about renewable energy
opportunities in Turkey and around the world.
Governor Pataki said that a successful panel on
“Renewable Energy Opportunities in Turkey” was
organized by the American Turkish Society and
sponsored by Chadbourne & Parke and added that
Turkey possessed significant potential in the
renewable energy sector.
Noting the need to invest $80 billion for energy
generation within the next 10 years in Turkey,
Pataki said, “as Turkey’s population grows, its
economy is also expanding and it is securing a more
important place among other countries. In this
context, electricity generation is one of Turkey’s
most significant problems.”
Governor Pataki emphasized that Turkey had
significant hydroelectric, solar and wind energy
potential, and said, “I know that Western
companies operating in the U.S. wind and solar
energy sectors are keen on renewable energy
opportunities in Turkey.”
Noting the similarities of the energy sectors in
Turkey and the U.S., Pataki emphasized that Turkey
imports 70% of its energy, especially natural gas,
from Russia and Iran, while the U.S. similarly
obtains almost 60% of its oil from external resources.
“When I consider Turkey and the U.S. in this respect,
I view renewable energy as a great opportunity
from an economic, environmental and national
security perspective,’’ Pataki said.
Governor Pataki mentioned that renewable
energy resources would encourage economic
growth, and that Turkey would benefit
environmentally from such resources as these
resources generate almost no carbon emissions.
Emphasizing the importance of renewable
energy resources for national security, Pataki stated
that, instead of depending on foreign resources for
heating and electricity (such as the U.S.’s
dependency on external sources for oil), developing
and using domestic alternative energy resources
enhances a country’s geopolitical safety.
Pataki said, “Turkey’s economy is growing and I
am very optimistic about its future. While the U.S.
still has work to do on advancing its clean energy
production, Turkey would like to do the same. For
that reason, we are experiencing a very exciting
period.”
Meeting with Prime Minister Erdogan
Mentioning a meeting with Turkish Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan about 1.5 years ago
in Istanbul’s Dolmabahçe Palace, Pataki said that he
had a great conversation with the Prime Minister
about Turkey’s future and global political issues.
Pataki added that when he asked Prime Minister
Erdogan what the biggest issue he was facing as the
Prime Minister of Turkey was, Erdogan responded
“energy,” and stated that Turkey needed its own
resources to generate energy instead of depending
on foreign countries.
Pataki mentioned that not only Turkey, but also
countries like the U.S., Germany and other Central
Europe nations were concerned about excessive
dependence on Russian natural gas. He said, “But in
Turkey you have these resources. You rank second in
Europe for solar energy capacity. You have incredibly
strong wind resources and geothermal energy
opportunities on the Aegean and Mediterranean
coasts. Moreover, the Turkish government has
announced its support in initiating hydropower
projects. All these will advance Turkey’s
environmental adaption, economic growth and
lower dependence on foreign energy resources. For
all these reasons, we are going through an exciting
period and we have opportunities ahead.”
Renewable Energy Law Draft
Governor Pataki, indicating that Turkey’s
renewable energy law amendment is still in
progress, said the amended law should provide
sufficient incentives for investors to attract them to
this sector. Pataki added that, during the process of
amending the law, he hopes to see a discussion
between the Turkish government and the global
business community to identify the necessary steps
for attracting investors into this field.
Emphasizing that Turkey can also become a
major manufacturer of solar panels, Governor Pataki
said, “Turkey is already a manufacturing country, so
there is no reason for Turkey not to become a major
manufacturer in the solar panel sector.”
In response to a question regarding the
economic profitability of renewable energy
resources, Governor Pataki said that in the
renewable energy field, as seen specifically in the
U.S. and Germany, government incentives are
crucial in the initial phases, and that only with such
support can the businesses function economically.
Pataki gave the example that the U.S.
government can provide “cash assistance” for the
30% of the projects in the renewable energy sector,
and federal loan guarantee for the 80% of the
remaining part of the projects, thus reducing the
overall costs. Pataki mentioned that with such
government support, the energy produced from
renewable resources in different states of the U.S. is
thus priced reasonably, and that the solar energy
industry in Germany is economically advanced
through similar incentives.
Pataki noted that while the Turkish
government and parliament were aware of the
necessities of providing such incentives, and while
the renewable energy law of 2005 included certain
incentives, certain investors did not find them to be
satisfactory. Pataki further stated that he hoped to
see the new draft of the law providing the necessary
incentives to drive investments into Turkey, leading
to the growth of the renewable energy sector.
Pataki said that he served as the Governor of
New York for three consecutive terms for a total of
twelve years, and after his service, he decided to join
an international firm that had an active practice in
the ‘‘renewable energy’’ industry, with global
experience particularly in emerging markets, and
that Chadbourne & Parke is especially strong in this
business.
Governor Pataki stated that Ayse Yüksel, head of
Chadbourne & Parke’s “Turkey, Middle East and
North Africa (Turkey/MENA) Group” was highly
successful, that the firm had 5 Turkish lawyers, and
that the firm was involved in important projects in
Turkey.
In response to a question relating to the use of
renewable energy resources in the struggle against
global climate change, Pataki indicated that the use
of such resources is a significant and positive step
towards “a reduction in the dependency on the old
and dirty technology.” Former Governor of New York
said that while countries grow their economies and
expand their energy resources, such countries and
the international communities will benefit from
the usage of zero-carbon emission energy options
such as solar, wind, and other renewable energy
resources.
Pataki also expressed that renewable energy
resources help maintain a resource balance around
the world, such that by using these new resources,
the world can prevent certain countries from having
a energy-exporting monopoly and earning excessive
profits from the countries that lack the domestic
energy resources.

Turkey's interest in renewable energy

2010-11-09T06:40:00.001-08:00

Istanbul Chamber of Commerce head Murat Yalcintas says that Turkey should enter the renewable energy equipment manufacturing sector.

Hurriyet reported Wednesday that Yalcintas, addressing a panel organized by Istanbul Kultur University, said that manufacturing renewable energy equipment would allow Turkey to obtain a share in a growing global marketplace that would expand significantly in the near future.

Yalcintas told his audience, "The expected investment for wind energy in Turkey is $30 billion, whereas this number is $60 billion for solar energy," with most of the investment based on equipment costs.

"If we can start from now on focusing on the production of equipment, then Turkey can be a worldwide player," he said.

Turning to the country's larger energy needs Yalcintas added that if Turkey can maintain a yearly growth rate of 6 percent, the country would need to invest $120 billion in the energy sector by 2020, an amount far beyond state resources.

Turkey’s Energy Reforms Make Way for Renewable Future

2010-11-09T06:38:00.001-08:00

Over the last decade, with the support of the World Bank, Turkey’s energy sector has transformed from a monolithic, state-run entity to a commercially-run, liberalized market, with significant private investment and ownership.

Today, the electricity supply is more reliable. For example, from 2004 to 2007, blackouts decreased by more than half, from 26,675 hours to 10,280 hours. More people have access to secure energy; transmission expansion and upgrades have enabled an estimated additional 4.6 million households to receive improved power supply. And an international transmission link has been established with Greece, enabling the exchange of electricity.

In the last ten years, Turkey has also improved the efficiency of its electricity market while increasing private sector participation in power distribution and generation. In the wholesale market, more than 100 private generation companies have been registered.

Four distribution companies have been privatized so far, out of a total of 20. Now, around 40 percent of consumers can choose their supplier – something that was scarcely available in 2002.

New Market Established

“Over the last few years, we have achieved significant results in terms of reforming the sector,” said Budak Dilli, General Manager of Energy Affairs at the Ministry of Energy. “An electricity market has been established; distribution companies have been privatized; several important legislations – on the electricity market, renewable energy, and energy efficiency – have been enacted and are now being implemented.”

What Turkey now faces is an increase in domestic energy demand and rapidly growing greenhouse gas emissions, a large portion of which come from energy production and usage. To meet energy demand with the least negative environmental impacts, the country seeks to increase its reliance on renewable energy while promoting energy efficiency among power consumers.

The energy efficiency market is also expected to deepen further, with increasing private ownership and investment. It is expected that the sector will rely more and more on clean, renewable resources.

With financing support from the World Bank through the Industrial Development Bank of Turkey (TSKB), small business owner Ali Kantur managed to convert a landfill into a garbage recycling station that creates heat and energy for local greenhouses.

“Two years ago, it was difficult to drive past this place because of the noxious smell and the unpleasant view,” he said. “Today it is an industrial facility that processes the garbage and produces energy from it in a completely environmentally sustainable way. It is hard to believe that the bitter odor is gone, the environment is protected, and on top of this we get energy out of this process.”

Today, the power and heat produced at the station is enough to power 31,000 households in Turkey.

Bank Supports Reforms

The Bank has supported Turkey’s energy reforms through lending and technical advice, in ways that reinforce the goals of each. The Bank’s program includes energy restructuring, liberalization, and privatization; introduction of competitive markets; financing of key rehabilitation and expansion works; and promoting private investment.

A new Development Policy Loan is under consideration to support Turkey’s energy sector reforms and their link to environmental improvement.
The Bank’s work in renewable energy has demonstrated the viability of financing private renewable projects, which have grown in Turkey from negligible levels in 2004 to about 1500 megawatts today. As a result of privately sourced renewable energy generation, the country has been able to avoid emissions of about 1.01 million tons of carbon dioxide a year.

The Bank has also helped Turkey attract large-scale private investment, particularly in renewable resources. New investments have targeted energy generation and privatized distribution.

Based on country priorities, the Bank and the Turkish government are expected to continue their partnership, with the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) providing policy advice as well as investment financing for renewable energy, energy efficiency, infrastructure, climate change, and overall supply security.

Turkey’s Ministry of Energy and Treasury will take the lead in determining overall strategic direction.

Turkey Benefits From Third World Bank Loan under the Energy Community of South East Europe Program

2010-11-09T06:35:00.002-08:00

The World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors today approved the third loan for Turkey under the Energy Community of South East Europe Program in the amount of EUR 169.2 million (US$ 220 million equivalent). The project financed by the loan will be implemented by the Turkish Electricity Transmission Corporation (TEIAS).

The countries of South East Europe (SEE) including Turkey and the European Union are cooperating to develop a regional energy market - the European Community of South East Europe (ESCEE), and integrate it into the internal energy market of the European Union¹ through the implementation of priority investments supporting electricity market and power system operations in electricity generation, transmission and distribution and technical assistance for institutional/systems development and project preparation and implementation.

The project, financed by this third adaptable programmatic loan (APL) for Turkey in the sixth phase of the ECSEE program (ECSEE APL 6), aims to increase the reliability and capacity of the power transmission system in Turkey and improve its ability to integrate renewable energy into the system. The project will thus help TEIAS and Turkey’s electricity systems to supply low cost, clean and high quality electricity reliably to consumers across the country.

The project includes two sub-components:

Component 1: Transmission System Strengthening and Expansion: This component will help finance some investments by TEIAS in the transmission system. It comprises sub-project investments to help expand the capacity and increase the reliability of the power transmission system and enhance the ability of the transmission system to integrate renewable energy, including investments in substations, cables and related systems.
Component 2: Institutional Strengthening: This component encompasses technical assistance, training and goods to strengthen the institutional and operation capacity of TEIAS, including in the areas of financial and operation management, accounting, auditing, enterprise resource planning (ERP), wholesale markets (balancing and day-ahead markets).

“This third World Bank loan to Turkey under the Energy Community of South East Europe Program recognizes the major steps that Turkey has taken toward the liberalization of its electricity market and its integration with the regional market of South Eastern Europe,” said Ulrich Zachau, Country Director for Turkey. “As the largest player in the South Eastern European market, Turkey continues to be among the leaders in electricity market development in the region. The project will enable the population in Turkey to benefit from a more reliable electricity supply, and will thus help spur economic growth and employment opportunities. I also particularly welcome the growing focus of Turkey’s energy program on energy efficiency and clean energy, to which the project financed by this loan contributes.”

ECSEE is a regional program and the World Bank’s investment support is being provided on a regional basis, using the adaptable program lending (APL) instrument to support ECSEE’s Regional Members (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro, Turkey and Kosovo).

Turkey’s Energy and Environment Policy Program

2010-11-09T06:35:00.001-08:00

The World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors today approved a Second Environmental Sustainability and Energy Sector Development Policy Loan (ESES-DPL 2) for Turkey in the amount of Euro 519.6 million (US$ 700 million equivalent).

Turkey’s energy and environment program, supported by the ESES DPL 2, aims to enhance energy security by promoting private sector clean technology investments and operations; to integrate principles of environmental sustainability, including climate change considerations in key sectoral policies and programs; and to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of environmental management in the context of harmonization with the Environmental Acquis of the European Union.

The Program has three components: Pillar I supports the energy program, covering energy pricing, electricity markets, renewable energy, energy efficiency, electricity distribution and generation privatization, and gas supply security and wholesale gas market development. Pillar II supports Turkey's National Climate Change Strategy following the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol in February 2009. Pillar III supports sustainable environmental management and is focused on the transposition of the EU Environmental Acquis and sectors/sub-sectors where environmental degradation could hamper sustainable development.

“Turkey continues implementing an ambitious energy sector program with a view to meeting the country’s growing energy demand in an efficient and sustainable manner,” said Ulrich Zachau, World Bank Country Director for Turkey. “Turkey has also begun stepping up its international and domestic engagement on environmental management and climate change. These actions and programs will help sustain economic growth, create more jobs, raise incomes, and reduce poverty; and will contribute to containing emissions, protecting the environment in Turkey, and improving the quality of life and health of its citizens. We in the World Bank are proud to be Turkey’s partner as the country advances this agenda.”

The ESES DPL2 is the continuation of the Programmatic Electricity Development Policy Loan (PEDPL1) dating back to 2009 in the amount of Euro 548.4 million (US$800 million equivalent) which supported the Government’s program for energy security, energy efficiency, and clean energy. The ESES DPL2 is an IBRD Flexible Loan in Euro with an interest rate equal to 6 months LIBOR term plus a variable spread, with a final maturity of 21.5 years, including a 14 year grace period.

Focusing on renewable energy for Turkey

2010-11-09T06:26:00.001-08:00

The unique nature of this city where 37 percent of its residents commute on bicycles is a combination of many factors, which may not be easy to replicate in other capitals of the world. “We cycle because it is a mode of transportation for us, not a leisure activity or exercise,” stresses Inge Nilsson, who works for the city’s environmental department. She explained all about how the municipality plans to reach the ambitious goal of making the city carbon neutral by 2025.

In a city where buying, maintaining and parking a car is much too expensive, no wonder a sizable portion of its half a million residents opts to use bicycles to commute from home to work every day. I guess it is also part of the culture in which many Danes feel very conscientious when it comes to protecting the environment. The Copenhagen City Council has launched more than 50 initiatives to make the city greener, encourage more bicycle commuting and offer free advice on conserving energy.

With the exception of cycling, I think we can copy the Copenhagen experience in most parts of Turkey’s cities. It remains certain that pedaling in the streets of Ankara is a dream that may never come true. It is also true that Turkey’s stance that its special circumstances must be taken into consideration when it comes to climate change is not a sustainable approach in the long run.

Out of concern that its fast developing manufacturing base may lose its competitive edge, Turkey kept insisting on having a guarantee that its special circumstances would be included in the final agreement of the failed 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change held in Copenhagen last year -- a provision appended to its portion of the Kyoto Protocol recalling “the special national circumstances of parties undergoing the process of transition to a market economy.”

Turkey’s exception was recognized in the 2001 COP 7 conference in Marrakech, where its name was deleted from Annex II of the convention. That meant that an unjust situation in which Turkey was included in the category as a developed country was corrected. But Turkey remained in Annex I of the convention because it is a member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Yet while this may have bought some time for Turkey by still using old coal-fired plants to fuel the engine of growth, I believe it is not a sustainable policy in the long run. Especially considering the fact that we have recently opened the environment chapter in negotiations with Brussels, the policy may need some revisions. The chapter will demand new environmental considerations affecting every business and municipality in Turkey, with a hefty price tag I might add.

For example, Turkey’s emission reduction target of 7 percent in the energy sector by 2020 is way below the 20 percent target set by the EU over the same time period. Therefore, Ankara may need to revise its national strategy document to reflect better alignment with EU standards and invest more in renewable energy technologies. Some environmental advocacy groups go further by saying that Turkey’s target should be to reduce emissions by at least 30 percent by 2020 in light of the fact that its emissions have risen quickly, from 170 million tons in 1990 to 372 million tons in 2007 as its annual per capita income rose from $3,000 in 1990 to $10,000 in 2007.

Though it may have warranted a place for Turkey in the category of “middle-income developing country” based on social and economic figures such as per capita income, per capita primary energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, the policy will take its toll on Turkey’s climate, which stands in one of the regions most vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change.

While I was cycling on the streets of Copenhagen sightseeing last week, I wondered if it would be possible to ride on one of the steep streets in Ankara, for instance, to reach the top of the hill in Çankaya. I said, “No way.

I suggest that policymakers take another look at the policy developed by the state agencies and come up with a more realistic and human approach to national interests. Then maybe we will see a more sensible policy aired by Turkey’s representatives at the UN ministerial talks in Mexico at the end of this year. We should invest more in renewable energy options and pass the draft law that has been waiting in Parliament for more than two years. An abundance of domestic and international investors have lined up already to take advantage of the booming renewables market in Turkey.

The meeting in Mexico will build on the Copenhagen Accord, which seeks to limit the increase in temperature to no more than 2 degrees Celsius above levels recorded in pre-industrial times. But the compromise face-saving agreement does not spell out how to achieve that goal and is not legally binding on parties. We do hope the international community will fare much better in Mexico.

Pratt & Whitney and Turkish Technic Strengthen Partnership with an Advanced CFM56 and V2500 Center of Excellence

2010-11-09T03:39:00.000-08:00

Pratt & Whitney, a United Technologies Corp. (NYSE: UTX | PowerRating) company, and its joint venture partner, Turkish Technic, a subsidiary of Turkish Airlines (ISE: THYAO), celebrated with an official grand opening ceremony this weekend for its advanced CFM56(R) engine and V2500(R) engine overhaul facility in Istanbul, Turkey.
Positioning itself as the Center of Excellence for CFM56 and V2500 maintenance, repair and overhauls within the region, the 25,000-square-meter (269,000-square-foot) Turkish Engine Center is located adjacent to the Sabiha Gokcen International Airport in the Anatolian peninsula. The facility has the capacity to service more than 250 engines annually.
"Turkey and its surrounding region are very strategic markets for Pratt & Whitney," said Pratt & Whitney President David Hess. "The opening of the Turkish Engine Center and our expanding partnership with Turkish Technic, which has 76 years of experience in the MRO market, is a testament to our commitment to forging a stronger presence in Turkey."
"This is an exciting phase for both Turkish Technic and Pratt & Whitney," said Dr. Ismail Demir, Turkish Technic general manager and Turkish Engine Center chairman of the board. "We are extremely pleased to be embarking on this journey with Pratt & Whitney."
Designed to meet the Gold standards of the United States Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED(R)) Rating System, the Turkish Engine Center is built with recycled material and uses renewable energy sources for a portion of its energy load. In addition the site is anticipated to reduce its overall water usage by 40 percent compared with conventional facility designs.
"Pratt & Whitney and Turkish Technic have strong commitments to environmental policies," said Todd Kallman, Pratt & Whitney Commercial Engines & Global Services president. "Therefore, we continuously focus on integrating operational and sustainable practices that help conserve energy while minimizing waste."
"The combined expertise and shared learning of Pratt & Whitney and Turkish Technic will ensure the success of the Turkish Engine Center," said Daniel Tennant, Turkish Engine Center general manager. "Our experienced and competent team is dedicated to deliver only first-class quality products and services to our customers in the region."
Turkish Technic is the leading maintenance service organization in its region, providing MRO services for Boeing and Airbus airframes, engines, auxiliary power units, landing gear and components. Turkish Technic serves airlines in Europe, the Middle East, Northern Africa, Turkey and the Commonwealth of Independent States, with its maintenance base in Istanbul and highly qualified workforce of more than 3,000 personnel.
In recent years, Pratt & Whitney has significantly increased business activities in Turkey: in 2005, both Alp Aviation and Kalekalip (now part of Kale Aero) were awarded manufacturing contracts for critical components of the Joint Strike Fighter's (JSF) F135. In June 2009, Pratt & Whitney and Kale Havacilik San, A.S. (Kale Aero), signed a memorandum of understanding with the intent to develop a joint venture located in Istanbul to produce aircraft engine components.
Pratt & Whitney Global Service Partners (GSP) is a total service provider for engines made by Pratt & Whitney, International Aero Engines, General Electric, Rolls-Royce and CFMI. In addition to engine overhaul and repair services, GSP provides customers with improved engine performance and increased asset value through a portfolio of services including line maintenance, engine monitoring and diagnostics, environmentally friendly on-wing water washes, leased engines, custom engine service programs, and new and repaired parts.
Pratt & Whitney is a world leader in the design, manufacture and service of aircraft engines, space propulsion systems and industrial gas turbines. United Technologies, based in Hartford, Conn., is a diversified company providing high technology products and services to the global aerospace and commercial building industries.
This release includes "forward looking statements" concerning anticipated business opportunities that are subject to risks and uncertainties, including pre-conditions to a fully functioning shop that have not yet been met. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated or implied in forward looking statements include changes in the health of the global economy and the aerospace industry. For information identifying other important economic, political, regulatory, legal, technological, competitive and other uncertainties, see UTC's 10-K, 10-Q and other reports filed with the SEC.

ISTANBUL: The city too big to fail

2010-11-09T03:22:00.000-08:00

Istanbul is a city as beautiful as Venice or San Francisco, and, once you are away from the water, as brutal and ugly as any metropolis undergoing the trauma of warp speed urbanisation. It is a place in which to sit under the shade of ancient pines and palm trees for a leisurely afternoon watching sun on water, looking out over the Bosporus. But also, in some parts, to tread very carefully. Istanbul has as many layers of history beneath the foundations of its buildings as any city in Europe. In 2010, it will become the European Cultural Capital. Depending on how you count, Istanbul has been the capital city of three, or perhaps four, empires. It is still shaped by the surviving fragments of Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Venetian and Ottoman civilisations. It has Orthodox Christian churches, Sunni mosques, and Sephardic synagogues. It has vast classical cisterns, ring upon ring of ancient fortifications, souks and palaces. It also has desolate concrete suburbs of extraordinary bleakness, urban terrorism, and a rootless, dispossessed underclass struggling to come to terms with city life.

It is the largest city in a state that emerged in 1923 from the chaos of World War I and the Versailles treaty, and the vision of modern Turkey’s founder, Kemal Ataturk, who, though he was born in what is now Salonika, and so unmistakably a European, moved his capital to Ankara, a city created almost from nothing. For the first few decades of modern Turkey’s existence, the state devoted most of its resources to the new capital and its infrastructure. For a while it looked as if Ankara and Istanbul might become twin poles: one a European gate, the other a counterbalance in the heartland of Anatolia. As Turkey’s urbanisation started to accelerate in the 1950s, the balance shifted overwhelmingly towards Istanbul. The rural poor poured into the big city and what used to be considered a cosmopolitan enclave, a demonstration of Turkey’s tolerance of other ethnic groups and faiths, has also become the heartland of its most conservative constituency. It is a city in which 3,500 dispossessed gypsies, descendants of a community that has lived in the Sulukule district in the shadow of the Byzantine city walls for centuries, are being systematically being moved out of sight and out of mind in an operation that recalls Robert Moses’ determination to drive federally funded highways through the black and Puerto Rican neighbourhoods of New York City.

Istanbul is the largest and most febrile urban centre in a country with an army committed to secularism, which, in some extreme cases, shades away from Ataturk’s ideals towards authoritarianism. If the generals miscalculate, it has the potential for an insurgency that could make Turkey a kind of Algeria and Istanbul its Algiers. But Istanbul is also what is driving Turkey, toward Brazil, Russia, India and China, the new economic powerhouses. The collapse of the Soviet Union made Turkey in general, and Istanbul in particular, a vital new centre for services and expertise profiting from a rapid growth in the energy-rich former Soviet republics. It is a phenomenon which is reflected in the array of carriers at Istanbul’s greatly enlarged airport, from Uzbekistan Airways, and Dniproavia, Tajikistan Airlines, Air Astana, Donbassaero and Tatarstan Airlines, their hulls painted in gaudy colours, more like busses than Boeings.

It is also visible in the stream of ships that clogs the Bosporus day and night, a continuous double file of tankers and freighters flows past the minarets and the suspension bridges that define the city. Istanbul is the base for the architects, the construction companies, the advertising agencies, and the banks that are reshaping Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, and the Ukraine and even Russia. It has banks and television stations; it has manufacturers that are shooting rapidly up the value chain from generic products to designer label kitchen sinks.

Istanbul is Turkey’s passport into the European Union. It sees itself as part of a group of cities on an axis running from Dubai to St. Petersburg. If London is Europe’s first global city, Istanbul sees itself as its second. It’s a city whose influence is shaped by both culture and commerce. Istanbul has a thriving approach to contemporary art, although surprisingly perhaps, given the close personal interest that Ataturk himself took in architectural issues, importing Austrians to plan Ankara, it has not as yet developed a distinctive architectural culture of its own in the way that Mexico or Australia have. Its geographic size and population mean that Istanbul has a strong claim to being regarded as the largest city in Europe, even if it partly lies in Asia, where a third of its citizens now live. In the European suburb of Levent, one of Istanbul’s main business districts where banks cluster, you can find facsimiles of smart London Chinese restaurants and mega shopping centres. But Istanbul is also a place with settlements within its limits, in which Kurdish migrants from rural Anatolia tend flocks of sheep under the gaze of prefabricated concrete apartment blocks.

It is a city like no other and yet it is a city that has things in common with many other cities, even if it does not always recognise it. While Cairo’s population has doubled, Istanbul’s population, like Lagos, has quadrupled since 1980. It straddles two continents, in a way that is very different from, but inevitably also reminiscent of, the twin cities of El Paso and Ciudad Juarez straddling the Rio Grande, blurring Mexico with the United States.

Istanbul is home to nearly 13 million people, governed in a recently created unitary jurisdiction, which saw the city’s land area nearly tripled from approximately 1,800 km2 to 5,300 km2. Even now, it still pulls in another 1.5 million workers every day, swelling its peak time population to 15 million. The city administration is attempting to limit its population to 16 million, fearing that if it is allowed to spread unchecked it will reach an impossible 25 million, in a country that has currently 71 million people. But this is really in the hands of the national government, rather than the city, given that the GDP of the poorest regions in Turkey is just 20 per cent of that of the richest areas of the country. With such an imbalance, it is no wonder that Istanbul has become a magnet for the rural poor. Turkey’s internal migration has had the effect of making the inequalities of Istanbul grow more acute, rather than less, even as it has prospered over the last decades. And it is not the master of its own fate. There is the TOKI state housing programme, run by the Prime Minister.

Very few cities have such a compartmentalised geography. The vast majority of Istanbul’s citizens never make the crossing from one continent to the other. But the 10 per cent who do cross from one half of the city to the other every day amount to a still huge total of 1.2 million. And to accommodate them, there is a plan to build a third bridge across the straits. However, it is feared by some that this will destroy the reservoirs that feed the city. Ask civic leaders if there is an environmental problem for Istanbul. The first thing that they talk about is August 17, 1999, when a serious earthquake hit the city, causing 20,000 deaths. Natural resources, population growth, and civil equity barely figure.

But there are ambitious plans to create linear sub centres, both on the east and the west sides of the city, allowing the two sections to function better. The one on the Asian side of the city, at Kartal, is being shaped in its early stages by a dynamic masterplan prepared by Zaha Hadid. Among such privately financed developments, Istanbul has been investing heavily in its infrastructure. A metro system is gradually taking shape, the trams are being revitalised. There is a new rail tunnel under the Bosporus which will allow the realisation of the ancient goal of one of Europe’s empires, to create a direct rail link from Berlin to Baghdad.

In a world in which an accommodation between competing power blocks is essential for both cultural and political reasons, Istanbul is a key bridge between them. It is a city with more than enough of the usual urban problems, but that also the energy and the resources to stand a chance of addressing them. It’s in nobody’s interest that they should fail.

Green Building Turkey

2010-11-08T05:44:00.000-08:00

Rising of sustainable architecture in Turkey is on everyone’s lips now. The world turned towards the country of two continents, already planning the greatest green building future there. But more and more voices in Turkey say – to build this future, they should watch at the past.
Sustainable architecture is not new fashion trend. Several hundred years ago in Emperor’s capital Istanbul, and till now on – in small South villages living without time – architecture was green. Turkish architects were living in peace with land and water much more than they do now. To find the most beautiful examples you don’t have to leave former hub of the world – Golden Horn in Bosporus. The most historical part of Istanbul, former home of Sultans, this place is offers you excursion to wise past.
Beginning with Topkapi Palace, huge territory with palaces, harem, libraries, courtyards, the main tourist attraction today and the site of UNESCO World Heritage. Covered with trees giving everlasting shadow, beautiful palaces of Topkapi gives you cool and serene feeling. Big windows orientated to get more sunshine but not heat. They also create flow of fresh air. Water system takes care of water used in the kitchen and in fountains. Spacious yards and court-yards teach how to manage the space.

Sultan Mehmed II chose old Byzantine acropolis for a New Palace. His biographies say that: “he took care to summon the very best workmen from everywhere - masons and stonecutters and carpenters. For he was constructing great edifices which were to be worth seeing and should in every respect vie with the greatest and best of the past. For this reason he needed to give them the most careful oversight as to workmen and materials of many kinds and the best quality”.

That was the reason why, coming to Istanbul for the first time, developers of Atasehir Project, the biggest and the greenest construction in Istanbul now, they first were led to Topkapi palace. To see Future in the most beautiful example of the past.

Hagia Sofia and the Blue Mosque stay right in front of each other and seem competing in grace and mastery. They are like two oases in summer heat. When you come inside you meet never-changing temperature in 20 degree. Natural ventilation system and wide walls of stone gives cool fresh atmosphere so needed is these holy places.

Right under mosques there is Basilica Cisterns – roman genius invention for keeping water. Between columns in the high ceiling from the very beginning you can find holes, providing a natural conditioner. Going through soil these pipes deliver cooled air. Forgotten and lost for centuries, rediscovered Basilica Cisterns now give her lessons.

Leaving Istanbul and moving more and more to the South and South East. In old villages of the Aegean Sea – from Izmir to Antalya – you find low stone houses. Huge stones from near sites under roof have small round halls going over perimeter of the building. “Here comes the air, - explains owner of the house in the village Altinoluk, - it’s kind of this modern conditioner. Air comes, moving here, going out. Air inside is very important. Why are the holes under the roof? It’s healthier”.

Houses in old villages closer to Diyarbakir on South-West can proudly claim to be built completely of renewable resources of near sites. Main materials are wood, sand, cow manure and mud. Manure is mixed with certain mud and doesn’t afraid of rain (at least for one year). These low one-floor houses are called “breathing houses”. Walls are breathing. They let the air inside and let it out and keep the air inside their porous structure. The walls are warm if you touch it and keep this warmth for the nights.

An Urban Oasis, Certifiably Green, Grows in Istanbul

2010-11-08T05:37:00.000-08:00

In Istanbul, the only city in the world to offer addresses on two continents, most overseas interest in real estate has focused on the historic, European side, rather than on the newer, Asian one.

That preference may change, though, thanks to a combination of government policy, population growth, demand for new earthquake-proof housing and the increasing difficulty of commuting from one side of this rapidly expanding city to the other.

Taking advantage of these needs is a major new residential and commercial development at Atasehir, on the Asian side of the city.

Five towers of the Varyap Meridian, which will echo Istanbul’s historic skyline of domes and minarets, will house 1,500 apartments and a luxury hotel; there also will be three office centers. The entire project is expected to be complete in 2012.

The development boasts the latest in green construction — covering just 10 percent of its 37-hectare, or 92-acre, site.

And strong early sales of its apartments illustrate how the city’s residential housing market is bouncing back from a decline that followed the global financial crisis.

With a booming population — there is no official count, but estimates are 13 million to 15 million — demand for housing continues to be strong because around 60 percent of all residents are younger than 30.

As the economy recovers — the government expects 3.5 percent to 5.5 percent G.D.P. growth this year. “Lower prices from the downturn are again attracting investment in the residential segment,” said Andrew Rohr, a real estate specialist with Colliers International’s Istanbul office.

And now the Turkish government is backing plans to move all the major financial institutions still in the capital city of Ankara to Istanbul’s Asian side.

“Three state banks, the central bank, the capital markets board and the banking supervisory and regulation agency have all bought their land here,” said Erdinc Varlibas, chief executive of the Turkish developer Varyap, nodding toward a muddy building site in Atasehir, a self-governing region off the main highway to Istanbul’s newest airport, Sabiha Gokcen.

With a new financial center at its core — the move still requires an act of Parliament, which the government promises this year — Atasehir looks set for takeoff.

“Around five million people live on Istanbul’s Asian side, with several million of these traveling to work on the European side every day,” said Mr. Varlibas.

“On a bad day, it can take four hours to get home in rush hour. These people don’t have to be tortured by traffic if they live and work in Atasehir,” he said.

Also, many residents of this earthquake-prone city have been looking for apartments that meet building codes introduced after the 1999 earthquake in Marmara, Turkey, that killed more than 17,000 people.

Yet, even with the advantages, Varyap decided it would take a special effort at Atasehir to attract buyers.

Its solution was to commission RMJM, an international architectural firm originally from Edinburgh, to come up with a design for the Varyap Meridian that would rewrite the rules for Istanbul’s tower blocks.

“We started out by taking the silhouette of the city,” said Chris Jones of RMJM’s Istanbul office. “You get a carpet of low rise across the seven hills, punctuated by minarets. Topkapi Palace, the seat of the Ottoman sultans, is also a very green building, naturally ventilated with shade built in and wonderful views.”

Taking all this into account, the Varyap Meridian’s curving towers use solar and wind power, and the developers have applied independent Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification to verify the project’s green building credentials.

For example, the glass, steel and concrete all come from within the surrounding 800 kilometers, or 500 miles, a LEED requirement.

The project’s apartments range from 54-square-meter, or 580-square-foot, studios, selling for 289,000 Turkish lira, or $195,000, to a 232-square-meter four-bedroom apartment, selling for 1.2 million lira.

The apartments are being sold in three phases: the first, being built now, is all but sold out, while 60 percent of the second phase is sold. The third phase, a 200-meter, or 655-foot, tower — expected to be the highest structure on the city’s Asian side — is not yet on the market.

“We knew we needed to do something truly iconic,” Mr. Varlibas said. Born in 1978, he represents a new generation of Turkish developers who are internationally aware and looking to meet — if not surpass — the best global design standards in residential buildings.

One & Ortakoy: A Sustainable Mixed-Use Complex in Istanbul Read more: One & Ortakoy: A Sustainable Mixed-Use Complex in Istanbul | Inhabitat - Gree

2010-11-08T05:11:00.000-08:00

Global Architectural Development (GAD) is on its way to constructing a mixed-use complex that will be a reflection of technology, sustainability and aesthetics in Istanbul. Dubbed the “One & Ortakoy,” this project is under construction in the neighborhood of Ortakoy. The developers have planned two buildings – one which will be designated for residential purposes while the second will be reserved for commercial use. Positioned right next to an enchanting hillside location, the project will be a major step toward improvement of the area.

A sequence of experimental strategies inspired by contextual elements have been used for the development of this project’s structure and organization. The architects aim to build recreational playgrounds on the roofs of both the buildings. These beautiful green roofs will not only blend the structures with the existing topography, but will also provide benefits for the environment. Both buildings will feature a natural stone façade, and this soft skin will tie in nicely with the natural hillside setting.

A change for the greener in Turkey

2010-11-08T05:06:00.001-08:00

ISTANBUL, Turkey — From the top suites in Istanbul’s newest development in Atasehir, one can see the city’s great waterways laid out, the churning waters of the Sea of Marmara devolving into the more docile Bosporus Strait. But it’s not the views that have cast a spotlight on this project, nor their attempt to transform this suburban hillside into Istanbul’s newest financial district and business center.

What makes the Atasehir development worth talking about is that it is about to become one of the "greenest" projects in the country. The first mixed-use development in Turkey to apply the U.S.-developed LEED standards for environmentally sustainable building, Atasehir is breaking new ground amid a movement for sustainable architecture in Turkey.

“Green building in Turkey has reached an unprecedented peak,” said Duygu Erten, the founding Vice President of Green Building Association of Turkey. “Unheard of several years ago, now major commercial developments advertise an awareness of environmental issues. Malls and major office developments are engaging in green retrofit processes.”

The 340,000-square-meter (3,660-square-feet) Atasehir project was designed by international architecture company RMJM for Turkish real estate development company Varyap, and will include rainwater collection sites and facilities to optimize water usage and reduce energy consumption, wind turbine technology, cooling water pools that enhance the external landscape and a co-generation plant that will produce electricity for the development.

But before the project began, the RMJM team took a trip with their clients to the famed Topkapi Palace, home of the sultans and harems of the Ottoman Empire for over 400 years.

“You look at the Ottoman Empire and the history of the region and you see this wonderful heritage of progressive approaches to building a civilization,” said Chris Jones of RMJM’s Istanbul studios. “But at some point in the 20th century Turkey seems to have lost its way and become very generic.”

The Topkapi Palace — also built on a hillside overlooking the water — was constructed of local materials and used its abundant water resources to cool the palace through central water channels, pools and rainwater storage.

“With this project we are trying to encourage Turkey to return to its regional influences, to return to an idea of sustainability centered on one's own environment.”

The design of Atasehir uses the site’s topography, climate and surrounding context to maximize the site's natural potential and inform the landscaping.

These ideas, though central to building sustainably, are nothing new.

İstanbul’s skyscraper race: a tale of necessities and sustainable heights

2010-11-08T04:08:00.000-08:00

As skyscrapers like the Burj Khalifa are built throughout the world to topple records and flex national and economic muscle, in the megacity of İstanbul such tall wonders are seen as necessities as its population and its finance sector grow to new heights.
The 181-meter-high İş Bankası building in İstanbul’s Levent district held the title of the tallest building in the 13-million-strong city until last year, when Sapphire of İstanbul, a 261-meter mammoth, also in Levent, clinched the title. In 2010, the $180 million 270-meter-high Diamond of İstanbul will be completed, narrowly taking the title of the tallest building in Turkey. All of these triumphant buildings, however, are tiny in comparison to the 828-meter Burj Khalifa in Dubai.

s İstanbul continues to be the economic powerhouse of Turkey, populations looking for work are migrating to the city, making it difficult and expensive for developers to build horizontally and thus redirecting their view to the skies. Real Estate Investing Partners Association (GYODER) President Turgay Tanes, speaking to Today’s Zaman, stated that “an increasing population, a lack of land in cities and the high price of available land means that there is a vertical trend in building development.”

Tanes noted, however, that along with this trend in the vertical, there is also a trend toward sustainable and environmentally friendly buildings. Calling on architects, engineers and investors not to ignore the sustainability of such tall initiatives, he said Turkey is currently obtaining more knowledge about this vital issue. “Currently there are buildings that are green certified. Investors in the sector have mostly internalized the concept of sustainability for buildings,” said Tanes. He added that building vertically can have benefits in the field of environmental impact and sustainability, as demand for private transportation and the increasingly widespread nature of public transportation is making it a necessity to have more centralized buildings and workplaces.

According to research by the organizations behind the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System and the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM), environmentally friendly buildings can decrease the operating costs of a building by 8 to 10 percent, while also shrinking energy costs by 40 percent.

Siemens ponders building sustainable cities with Istanbul conference

2010-11-08T04:07:00.000-08:00

What will Istanbul look like in the year 2023? A megacity on the verge of collapse? A sustainable, modern city, offering efficient infrastructure to its citizens? A conference on the future of sustainability, held by Siemens in Istanbul on Tuesday, attempted to answer these tough questions.

The European Green City Index 2009, based on a study carried out by Siemens in collaboration with the Economist Intelligence Unit to evaluate cities across 30 different indicators, ranked Istanbul at 25 among the 30 top European cities examined. Copenhagen was first place in the list.

The index measured cities on aspects ranging from environmental governance and water consumption to waste management and greenhouse emissions.

With increasing urbanization, cities are responsible for 75 percent of the world’s energy use and produce more than 80 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions, mostly carbon dioxide.

It has been estimated that redesigning cities could positively influence up to 70 percent of humanity’s ecological footprint, which is calculated by comparing humans’ consumption of resources and generation of waste with nature’s capacity to generate new resources and absorb our waste.

London, one of the world’s largest cities, has an economic footprint of 3.05 planets, meaning that more than three planet earths would be needed to support the world’s population if everyone lived like a Londoner. Given that London was still ranked at No. 11 in the European Green City Index, it is likely that residents of Istanbul exert an even greater footprint.

Many agree that technology could pave the way toward sustainability. “We are seeing a green technology boom of $40 billion,” Patrick Dixon, the founder and chairman of Global Change, said in his keynote speech.

Dixon said he believes that for green technology to become more widespread, oil prices are a crucial factor, as well as people’s goodwill to save the environment. “If the oil price stays above $80 a barrel, it is commercially worthwhile to develop green technology.”

Making better buildings

Speaking of possible solutions, The Global Change chairman said 40 percent of global energy consumption was used to construct and tear down buildings. If buildings were made to last longer, more energy would be saved. He also advocated the use of polymer concrete to replace cement, as well as using heat pumps in buildings.

Some countries are already making advances in building designs, with 30 percent of all new buildings in Switzerland now using heat pumps.

He said balancing air conditioning could also save energy by 30-50 percent, as would using energy-efficient street lights. Cities could also upgrade their system by using smart grids that could help facilitate power transmissions.

“We could power Moscow from the Sahara or power Istanbul from Denmark’s wind farms,” he said.

Siemens, which recently showcased its leading Osram lighting technology at the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, aims to be at the forefront of developing energy efficient solutions and products. The technology ensures that lighting fixtures can last 15 times longer and are 80 percent more efficient than conventional bulbs.

The company is also helping cities upgrade their electricity grids, particularly in Turkey, which is seeing a huge increase in energy consumption, said Dr. Jan Mrosik, chief executive of Siemens AG Energy Automation.

Predicting that energy consumption would grow 118 percent in Turkey between 2009 and 2020, Mrosik said the rise would make power outages more frequent.

“The new grids would be more complex than the old ones, but they would increase the capacity, which can also allow renewable energy generated in the future to be transmitted,” he said.

If Turkey does everything correctly, the country would have “wind power from the west, solar power from the south, and hydropower from the mountainous center of the country” by 2023, according to Mrosik.

Eco-Friendly Istanbul Building

2010-11-06T03:42:00.000-07:00

Green design is on the lips and fingertips of designers all across America, Europe and other parts of the world. But one place where it hasn’t quite caught on with such fervor is Turkey. While architects there want to maximize the profitability and usability of a building, they don’t necessarily incorporate eco-friendly features or designs into their buildings for the sake of being environmentally aware. At least one firm in the area is inching toward green designs, but probably not for the reasons you’d expect.

Erginoglu & Calislar recently designed a telecommunications building on the outskirts of Istanbul that turned out to be pretty eco-friendly. But firm co-founder and architect Hasan Calislar insists that the features that make the building so “green” are in place simply because they feel right and they add a positive element to the space. A big consideration in the building’s design was the fact that workers often end up staying in the building for days on end while working on a project. The architects wanted to make the structure as pleasant as possible while still encouraging productivity.

One of the most important factors in making the workspace a happy and healthy one was incorporating plenty of natural light. Sunlight not only keeps workers in better spirits; it cuts down on electricity costs as well. One side of the building is composed of a large bank of windows. Windows on two other sides are optimally placed to allow in even more natural light. Double-glazed windows help to keep the temperature even, and if the sun becomes too bright and glaring, adjustable shutters on the roof can be moved to block the worst of it.

One of the most important factors in making the workspace a happy and healthy one was incorporating plenty of natural light. Sunlight not only keeps workers in better spirits; it cuts down on electricity costs as well. One side of the building is composed of a large bank of windows. Windows on two other sides are optimally placed to allow in even more natural light. Double-glazed windows help to keep the temperature even, and if the sun becomes too bright and glaring, adjustable shutters on the roof can be moved to block the worst of it.

At the far end (from the entrance) the building is a full four stories high, with an airy movement that allows workers to see what’s happening all around them on all levels. To keep the building’s occupants in good spirits and good health, the building features a fitness center, dorms (for those long projects) and a movie screen over the main stairway. The architects may have set out to make this building just worker-friendly, but with several factors that contribute to both a healthy planet and healthy workers, it’s turned out Earth-friendly as well. It just goes to show that green design is somewhat intuitive; by doing what feels right for a building and its inhabitants, architects can create a livable, eco-friendly space.

Regnum Tower for Istanbul Features BioClimatic Architecture

2010-11-06T02:27:00.000-07:00

Steeped in centuries old architectural gems, Istanbul has historically been considered the ornate centerpiece of Turkey. Today, Istanbul has become a focus for investors and talented international architects alike, both hoping to take advantage of the inevitable emergence of this ancient city into a full-fledged global metropolis. One such design is Park Associati’s Regnum Tower, which caught our attention for its bioclimatic architecture, beautiful sculptural design, and the rigor to which it was planned to meet the highest standards of sustainability. And did we mention the views?

Foregoing an over-imposing block construction, Italian based firm Park Associati formed Regnum Tower into three distinct components around a single transparent volume, creating a winding figure and a continuously changing façade. The internal plan has divided the building into five five-floor sections, each with an open-level common area containing bioclimatic glasshouses.

The green filled glasshouses will provide shade and cross ventilation, cooling both the building and its occupants. A definite plus for those hot and humid Istanbul summer days! The orientation of the building will also prove beneficial in collecting winter warmth, with southeast to southwest windows capturing some heating energy on sunnier days.

Zorlu Ecocity, a Striking Green City within a City

2010-11-06T02:08:00.000-07:00

Zorlu Ecocity is a Llewelyn Davies Yeang project located in Istanbul, Turkey. It's a mixed-use development located at the southern extremity of Buyukdere Street in Istanbul. The plan is conceptualized as a "city within a city" and conforms to the city's planning strategy to multiply the number of urban centers throughout the Marma region to relieve pressure on Istanbul's historic core.

Zorlu Ecocity will have 588,850 sm (6,338,329 sf) of accommodation, which includes office towers, residential towers, two hotels, apartments, and resort-style elderly units above a three story retail complex. In total, we're talking about 14 towers ranging from 8 to 26 stories.

This city within a city will also accommodate six thousand cars in a seven-story deep basement. But, as I look at the renderings and ponder the concept, I think the idea is that people won't need their cars anymore. Plus, I'm guessing there will be a link with mass transportation to make car use an aberration, as opposed to the norm.

The city has undeniable appeal with all the greenery and open space. It seems so peaceful. Ken Yeang, director of Llewelyn Davies Yeang and known expert on bioclimatic skyscraper design, will be speaking about this project at the Ecocity World Summit in April.*

Signs of recovery in the Istanbul office market (TR)

2010-11-06T01:59:00.000-07:00

On the back of the recovery from the economic crisis, we are observing an increase in tenant demand.

In the last two years, lease transactions were at a minimum, with only a small number of tenants taking new space, mainly in the business areas of Ümraniye and Levent. In addition to the economic crisis, some of the reasons for the limited number of transactions were the high fit-out and moving costs, shortage of alternatives and long approval procedures. However, despite these challenges, and on the back of recovery, we expect to see a significant number of deals in the last half of 2010.

A number of multinational corporations have reactivated their activities, which were for the most part postponed immediately after the crisis. Mainly corporations engaged in the financial, technology, FMCG and services sectors are active in securing their new contracts. However, the motives behind the current demand are different from what was seen in the market in 2007 and 2008, where occupier interest was directed to more prestigious offices. Now in 2010, tenants are looking for A-class office space in secondary regions like Ümraniye and Kavacýk for budgetary purposes. In this regard, downsizing, optimization of space and consolidation are the main trends in the office market.

Since the beginning of 2010, the office market began to show signs of sustained activity, however tenants are still cautious entering into commitments. The completion of a transaction is more time consuming and involves more procedures than companies expect. The market transformed in the last two to three years from a landlords’ market to a tenant’s market, with expectations for greater flexibility on commercial terms and more incentives.

Supply
In addition to the low demand, there was a shortage of supply enabling rents to remain stable in the period following the global economic crisis. Many pipeline projects were postponed in 2009 in prime office districts such as Levent, Zincirlikuyu and Kozyataðý due to lack of financing. In Turkey, project pre-leasing is not a common practice, unlike most other the countries. Although the economy seems to be recovering in 2010 and the mood of the market is optimistic, a lease contract is still the pre-requisite for assuring funds and credit for investors and developers. Thus office projects will likely be neglected when compared to residential and retail projects, which provide higher short term returns.

For new projects to come online, developers require sustained low interest rates with ease of credit. Also, for developers and investors to feel more confident in the market, more transactions are needed along with decreasing vacancy rates. This would enable the realization of pipeline projects concentrating in the main CBD.

Suburbanization of office market
Much of the tenant demand over the last two years has shifted from the main CBD to secondary regions on the Asian Side. Umraniye, for instance, has become an attractive location for companies who are looking for quality A class office space and budget alternatives in accessible locations with connections to both bridges. Kavacik is another location that appeals to companies with budgetary and accessibility concerns. However, the area has infrastructure and permit related issues. We expect to observe the emergence of new sub-centers like Kagithane, due to the development of a new traffic tunnel and Kartal, with its new metro line.

Rental growth outlook
Low tenant demand in 2009 was the main reason for the decrease in prime rents. Although prime rents remained stable in 2010, we expect to see a sharp drop in prime rents in the main CBD, once the pipeline stock is realized. The main reason for the stable figures was the undersupply in most of the districts of Istanbul, as discussed above.

Office trends: Green buildings
Many of the larger office building tenants will be attracted by low rents and concessions offered by landlords in class A and B office buildings. In a market where earthquakes are a reality, with a risk of flooding in some areas, such as Basýn Ekspres in the airport region, sub-standard offices will struggle to keep tenants. Demand for environmentally-friendly, energy-saving and certificated offices will influence pipeline projects and future trends. Many multinational corporations have started to adopt sustainability standards. For the time being, these companies require some of the features of green offices, even if they do not insist on LEED or BREEAM certification.
The greening of office buildings is gaining momentum in Turkey, like the rest of the world.

The pioneering Levent Ofis by Tekfen-Oz Real Estate Development is the first speculative office building in Turkey. The development follows Siemens Offices in Gebze, which was the first owner-user office project. Most of the pipeline projects evaluate energy labeling systems in an effort to integrate these standards in their projects. Increasing demand for green offices, especially in the US and European countries, will create pressure for Turkish developers. This trend will provide a learning opportunity for developers, tenants, architects, engineers and real estate professionals. In the last two years we have observed balconies and winter gardens in the concept designs of new office projects and this is due to the support and incentives given by the local authorities. Should such incentives be given to energy saving project concepts, the realization of green buildings will be supported by many developers. We support these efforts and believe that by applying these standards, green buildings and energy improvements provide another way for developers to add value to their projects.

Istanbul (Not Constantinople)

2010-11-06T01:57:00.001-07:00

Once the capital of several former empires and now one of the largest cities in Europe, Istanbul is currently undergoing a renaissance; a transformation from ancient capital to modern city.

Istanbul is a city of extremes and opposites. The city itself lies on two continents: Europe and Asia, split by the mighty Bosphorus strait. Originally situated on seven hills, Istanbul has grown exponentially over the past century as Turks have moved from Anatolian villages to the modern metropolis of Istanbul to make their fortunes. After all, there is an old Turkish saying that Istanbul’s streets are “paved with gold”.

There might be something to this saying as many recent developments in the city have been world-class shopping centers, like the newly opened Istinye Park. Situated near one of the commercial centers of Istanbul, developer Development Design Group intended Istinye Park to be “a unique urban lifestyle environment”� nestled amongst the hills of surrounding neighborhoods. Designed with Turkey’s rich cultural history in mind, Istinye Park also has a modern Turkish bazaar inside.

A few kilometers from Istinye lies Levent, home to one of the more elegant multi-purpose complexes in Istanbul: Kanyon. Completed in 2006, Kanyon consists of a shopping mall, a towering 22-story residential building and 30 floors of office space. Kanyon is directly connected to the Metro, making shopping or dining convenient for commuters in Istanbul. Metallic grey walls twist and bend to guide visitors through the open-air center, walls sloping upwards and towards the sky. Residents and visitors sit outside on the stone grey courtyard of Kanyon, reading books and drinking Turkish coffee, protected from the elements by the sloping curves of the building. Although situated in a busy urban environment, the organic feel of the shopping center makes it seem like an oasis.

While the skyline of Istanbul is famous for its towers and minarets, new landmarks are rising all over the city. One of the most ambitious projects, the Dubai Towers Istanbul, or DTI for short, was recently approved in the district of Levent. At a cost of $500 million, the Dubai Towers Istanbul will be a substantial investment in Istanbul’s future. Once completed, the two towers of DTI will take their place as Turkey’s tallest pair of buildings with tower one standing at over 300 meters and tower two at 250 meters.

Turkey’s first green building, known as the Istanbul Sapphire, is currently under construction directly across the street from the planned site of the Dubai Towers Istanbul. The L-shaped building will consist of a 34,000-square-meter shopping center and 47 floors of luxury residences, with enjoying nature in the middle of the city as a central theme. Private gardens will exist on every third floor of the residences, bringing the natural world indoors. As green spaces and public parks are not a common feature to most central neighborhoods of Istanbul, such features are an added highlight. Extraordinarily high-tech, the Istanbul Sapphire has a unique double façade allowing fresh air to permeate the building, as well as control the indoor temperature throughout the seasons. Residents of the Sapphire will be able to enjoy year-round green gardens despite Istanbul’s surprisingly cold winters and hot, humid summers.

With an equally elegant name, the Istanbul Diamond is an impressive three-tower structure under construction in the business district of Maslak. The three towers will connect to one another by a central spine, creating one structure. The Istanbul Diamond will be home to an immense 20,000-square-meter, 300-room hotel, an 18,000-square-meter residential block, a 16,000-square-meter office block, as well as a large shopping mall, aquarium, botanical garden, cinema and several concert halls. Soaring to the height of 270 meters above street level, a restaurant with a panoramic view on the top floor will offer diners an impressive view of both entrances of the Bosphorus. The Istanbul Diamond is currently set for completion in 2010, an important year for Istanbul as it has been chosen to be the European Capital of Culture.

The visually stunning Bijoux Plaza is also located in Maslak. With a geometrically intricate, bold-red aluminum exterior, the Bijoux Plaza will certainly make a strong impression with its innovative design. Designed by Turkish architect Emre Arolat, the Bijoux Plaza will be approximately 80 meters tall with 15 floors of office space. While not soaring to the heights of the Istanbul Diamond, the striking building will be a bold addition to the area’s many grey, rectangular office buildings. The Bijoux Plaza is currently under construction and slated for completion later this year.

Next is the Garden Life Plaza, designed by BRT Archtekten and located in Gayrettepe. The oval-shaped building will have a total of 52 floors: 44 of which will rise above street level to the height of 170 meters. Named after the three garden sections located on the front façade of the building, the Garden Life Plaza will house offices, residences, cinemas, a fitness center, a spa, subterranean dining and retail centers. Construction has not yet begun but completion is expected in 2010.

On the Asian side of Istanbul, architect Zaha Hadid is planning a futuristic and dramatic development in the suburb of Kartal. The Kartal-Pendik Masterplan is a radical project that would create a new urban center on the remains of an abandoned industrial site. Built on over six million square meters of land, the Kartal-Pendik Masterplan comes complete with a business center, residential developments, cultural buildings, parks and open spaces. The structures flow together in organic, fluid lines stretching from the tallest buildings down to single structures and finally to the sea. It is one of the most radical and visually stunning proposals that would change the face of Istanbul while creating a new city center in what most Istanbul residents consider a distant suburb.

The current wave of building reflects Turkey’s economic growth and stability over the past decade. Turkish and foreign investors are pouring money into projects all over the city. Other notable developments include a recently announced seven-floor, seven-star underwater hotel built by Tanriverdi Holding on the site of a former tobacco factory in the waterside district of Besiktas; a third Bosphorus bridge that would link Europe and Asia and aid in reducing Istanbul’s congested cross-continental traffic, as well as the Marmaray Project, which will connect the European and Asian Metro and rail systems through an immense underwater tube in the Bosphorus, further aiding Istanbul’s commuters.

While still a city very much rooted in tradition, Istanbul is currently reinventing itself, moving forward and growing to meet the demands of today’s modern world. Construction sites are impossible to avoid as new structures and skyscrapers are being built all over the city. It’s an extraordinary time in Turkey to witness such change transformation in one of the oldest and largest cities in Europe. While it remains to be seen how Istanbul and the rest of Turkey will temper progression with tradition, this has always been the predicament for this ancient capital and modern metropolis.

Turkey to Connect with the European Grid, Expanding Energy and Economic Opportunities

2010-11-06T01:48:00.000-07:00

Turkey will connect to the European electrical grid this September using GE's (NYSE: GE) smart grid technology. The connection will allow for expanded energy and economic opportunities. The Turkish Electricity Transmission Company (TEIAS) will now be able to buy and sell power in the European electricity market and the connection will strengthen the reliability and availability of energy throughout all of Europe.
'The territory serviced by ENTSO-E (European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity) is one of the highest demand regions for energy in the world,' according to a report issued in 2009 by the Ministry of Energy. 'The energy policies of ENTSO-E's countries are driving a single market model through the synchronization of more networks, thus increasing the reliability of the supply of electricity to maximize the efficiency of generation, transmission, distribution and consumption of energy while minimizing environmental impact.'
Connecting Turkey with the rest of the European grid is an important step to help meet these initiatives. The cross-border system may also enable a new, cleaner energy mix for Europe. There is a demand for renewable energy in European countries, and Turkey has massive renewable energy sources, which makes this new relationship mutually beneficial to both TEIAS and ENTSO-E.
'Smart grid solutions are opening energy opportunities in new ways every day,' said Bob Gilligan, vice president-digital energy for GE Energy Services. 'Our communications and control technologies are enabling international trade and power-sharing breakthroughs that seemed nearly impossible just a few years ago. When Turkey joins the European energy community, it will be a vital step forward for power systems on both sides of the connection.'
GE's smart grid communications and wide area protection solutions will monitor grid status at the points of connection and automate the control of generation and load within Turkey. The system will optimize power sharing and power quality while improving reliability and preventing cascading outages.
GE completed the engineering for the system in a matter of months, using proven products and system integration expertise. Currently in the final phases of testing, GE's wide-area protection solutions should enable the first inter-connection of Turkey's and European grids in September.

IEA encourages Turkey to further reform its energy sector

2010-11-05T05:03:00.001-07:00

IEA encourages Turkey to further reform its energy sector and move towards a low-carbon economy

23 July 2010 Ankara --- Turkey will likely see the fastest medium to long-term growth in energy demand among the IEA member countries,” said Nobuo Tanaka, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), today in Ankara. Presenting the new study Energy Policies of IEA Countries - Turkey 2009 Review, he noted that although ensuring sufficient energy supply to a growing economy remains the government's main energy policy concern, “Turkey has also progressed significantly in all other areas of energy policy over the past few years.”

Turkey needs large investments in energy infrastructure, especially in electricity and natural gas, to be able to supply affordable energy to its people and to sustain rapid economic growth. To attract that investment, the country needs to continue reforming its energy market. “Power sector reform is well under way, but in the natural gas sector reform has been slower and needs to be accelerated,” Mr. Tanaka said.

Successful energy diplomacy to improve security of supply, but challenges remain

Turkey imports practically all the oil and gas it uses and these imports may almost double over the next decade. A key part of Turkey's policy is energy diplomacy with the supplier countries in the region, which together hold more than 70% of the proven oil and gas reserves of the world. “Turkey's successful energy diplomacy benefits both the country itself and the wider international community,” Mr. Tanaka stated. “The IEA acknowledges the role Turkey has played in improving global energy security,” he added.

In addition to securing oil and gas from diversified sources, the country should nevertheless also focus on stronger measures at home. In particular, the IEA encourages Turkey to develop a comprehensive long-term plan to increase emergency oil reserves and natural gas storage capacity. Turkey should also improve its institutional capacity, possibly by swiftly establishing a stockholding agency to further enhance compliance with the IEA oil stockholding obligation. IEA member countries are required to hold oil stocks equivalent to at least 90 days of net oil imports.

Large potential for improving energy efficiency and limiting CO2 emissions

“On a global scale, we need a transition to a low-carbon economy, a revolution in how we produce and consume energy,” Mr. Tanaka stressed. “Over the long term, we have to dramatically improve energy efficiency both in the supply and demand side. We must also decarbonise power generation and transport”, he went on and added “Turkey's plans to increase the use of renewable energy sources and to build nuclear power are clear steps in the right direction.”

Energy Policies of IEA Countries - Turkey 2009 Review underlines the importance of improving energy efficiency in responding to Turkey's energy policy challenges. Whilst there is great potential in all sectors, in a country where private cars are rapidly becoming more common and where significant new construction is foreseen, transport and buildings merit particular long-term attention from decision makers.

Energy-related CO2 emissions in Turkey have more than doubled since 1990 and are likely to continue to increase rapidly over the medium and long term, in parallel with energy demand. “The IEA urges Turkey to intensify efforts to further develop its approach concerning its post-2012 regime to combat climate change, and to consider setting a quantitative overall target for limiting emissions,“ said Mr. Tanaka.

Source: IEA

Turkey is the Second Biggest Wind Energy Market in CEE

2010-11-05T05:02:00.000-07:00

Turkey is the second biggest wind energy market in the region, according to a study by Frost & Sullivan (http://www.energy.frost.com), Investment Opportunities in the Wind Energy Sector in Europe. As Turkey's electricity demand increases and its prospect of joining the EU becomes a reality, the importance of developing renewable energy markets - especially wind energy markets - is being realized.

A recent boom in wind energy shook the Turkish market. Following a call for bids in 2007, 751 projects worth 78 GW were received in one day, and since then, the government has issued licenses for 5 GW, of which 402 MW are being constructed and 668 MW have received permission.

Turkey to let the breeze help

2010-11-05T05:01:00.000-07:00

Turkey's government aims to pass legislation that sets out incentives to adopt renewable energy resources before the Ankara parliament ends its present session on July 16, Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said today.

There will be no increase to the 5.5 euro cent-per-kilowatt- hour price at which the government buys wind power, Yildiz told reporters in Ankara today.

The price should be at least 7.5 euro cents to justify investment in wind power generation, Zeki Eris, chief executive of the EDF Energies Nouvelles SA unit Polat Enerji Sanayi & Ticaret AS, said in an interview June 16.

Turkey wants to encourage hydro-electric, wind, and solar generation in order to reduce the country's dependence on imported gas from Iran and Russia and help meet demand that is growing at about 7 percent annually, according to government forecasts.

Middle East Energy Investors Catch Wind of German Offshore Opportunities

2010-11-05T04:59:00.000-07:00

Investors from the Middle East are expressing a growing interest in large-scale, sustainable industries, including Germany's renewable energies industry. Developments in the offshore wind energy industry make it one to watch for investors. Germany's first wind park was recently completed and German wind companies are strongly represented in a number of European offshore projects. The investment potential in German offshore projects will be one theme at this year's World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi from January 18-21, 2010. Germany Trade & Invest will present these opportunities at a roundtable discussion.

The completion of the alpha ventus offshore wind farm in November, a pilot project led by EWE, E.ON Climate & Renewables, and Vattenfall Europe New Energy, marks the most significant recent development in Germany's offshore industry. By removing several obstacles to offshore wind energy generation, it paves the way for new offshore parks that are in late planning stages. The venture consists of 12 five-megawatt wind turbines located 45 kilometers off the island of Borkum in the German Bight at a water depth of about 30 meters.

Investors from the Middle East are currently drawn to sustainable, long-term industries. Masdar, for example, a state-owned enterprise of the United Arab Emirates, already operates a thin-film solar module plant in Germany that serves as a technology reference point for its operations abroad.

Johannes Dimas, Senior Manager for the wind energy industry at Germany Trade & Invest will moderate a roundtable discussion for interested investors on Germany's opportunities. According to Dimas, "Players in Germany's wind energy industry face ideal conditions, making our industry increasingly attractive to investors from the Middle East. Germany's supply industry is a world leader with an exceptional export ratio. Incentives have been tailored to virtually eliminate risk. High feed-in tariff rates are guaranteed for 20 years, which boosts short-term profitability."

Government Support Stimulates Industry

With a EUR 30 billion industry and an export quota above 80 percent in 2008, Germany is ideal for investors seeking to enter the wind energy sector. The industry is supported by a raft of measures from the country's economic stimulus package and the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG in German). This law requires power companies to buy energy from owners of renewable energy installations at a rate that is above the standard retail price. Revisions in 2009 have given a significant boost to wind energy in particular. For offshore sites, transmission system operators are required to provide grid connections at sea, which marks a clear reduction in risk for investors.

Germany Trade & Invest is the foreign trade and inward investment promotion agency of the Federal Republic of Germany. The organization advises foreign companies looking to expand their business activities in the German market. It provides information on foreign trade to German companies that seek to enter foreign markets.

ISTANBUL - The billboards on the airport road were hard to miss

2010-11-05T04:56:00.000-07:00

ISTANBUL — The billboards on the airport road were hard to miss: large red placards from Akbank proclaiming that “Sustainability is our favorite topic.” The Turkish bank's intended audience? Investors, bankers and delegates arriving for the annual meetings earlier this month of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

But some investors in renewable energy projects say they are troubled by a more disagreeable topic: slowness by Turkey's government in moving to privatize its energy markets and take advantage of its capacity for generating wind power.

In 2005, Turkey passed a Renewable Energy Law to bring the country more in line with European Union regulations. But the tariff structure offering a government guarantee of about 5 euro cents per kilowatt hour is widely seen as discouraging to investors because the rate is lower than in most European countries.

A proposed revision of the 2005 law is now before Parliament in Ankara and could improve the system, investors say, helping to release the backlog of applications to build wind farms. Opening the market “would allow small wind farms to proliferate and lead to development of regional power production,” said Murat Ozakat, managing partner in Mitra, a wind and real estate investment company based in Alacati on the Aegean coast. Turkey, which relies heavily on imported natural gas from Russia, “could produce 35 percent of its energy from hydro, 25 percent from wind, 10 percent from geothermal and the rest from gas and oil, but instead, today it's the opposite,” Mr. Ozakat said during a recent interview.

“Turkey pays $50 billion a year to other countries for oil, gas, coal and electricity, and by 2023 it will be $100 billion if we don't act now,” he said. “But to develop these sectors, we need longer-term credit and incentives from the government. This is a national security issue.”

It is also a sector in which people hope to make money. The amount of wind power installed in Turkey nearly tripled in 2008 and was set to expand further this year. Energy and Natural Resources Minister Taner Yildiz said at a renewable energy conference in Ankara, the capital, this month that his government was “resolute” about expanding renewable energy sources.

That is good news for Turkish companies trying to increase their share of the renewables market. Agaoglu Group, for example, recently purchased Galata Wind, a unit of the Dutch-Italian company Relight. Bloomberg News said Galata operated three wind farms with a total capacity of 203 megawatts and put the value of the deal at $500 million.

The largest single wind project in Turkey is the Gokcedag Wind Farm in Osmaniye, in southern Turkey between the cities Adana and Gaziantep. There, Rotor Elektrik, a member of Zorlu Energy Group, is installing 54 turbines built by General Electric. The project is designed to raise Turkey's current 500 megawatt wind energy capacity by about 30 percent. Turkey's potential for wind power generation, according to its Energy Ministry, is 48,000 megawatts.

Financing for the €210 million, or $313 million, project comes from a blend of lenders. The International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group, is providing €55 million; the European Investment Bank is lending €30 million; and additional guarantees are coming from HSBC and DenizBank.

The Osmaniye wind farm is also the first project in Turkey to have the support of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which decided to redirect some of its lending capacity to Turkey, the sixth largest electricity market in Europe, at a time when the debt crisis was slowing the process of privatization. The EBRD added Turkey to its portfolio a year ago and provided a €45 million construction loan for the Osmaniye farm.

Murat Sungur Bursa, Zorlu's chief executive, said during an interview that capacity at Osmaniye, when fully operational, will be close to 500 million kilowatt hours of electricity per year.

“We also plan to expand with two more projects to be developed next year in the same region,” he said, adding 110 more turbines to produce 245 megawatts of energy. The power, he said, would be sold to the Turkish national grid.

But like Turkey's hydroelectric dam projects, expansion of the wind sector provokes some concerns among environmentalists.

Guven Eken, president of Doga Dernegi, the Turkish Nature Association, said it would be a mistake to interpret advances in wind projects as an outgrowth of a “proper energy policy in Turkey.”

“Currently the country is opening doors to all kinds of energy — nuclear, hydro, megadams, wind, geothermal — but the way in which the government is pursuing the energy issue is like a panic atmosphere,” Mr. Eken said. “It is trying to invest in all sectors at the same time, at the maximum limit, without taking into account the environmental considerations resulting from these huge investments. There's not an energy policy but rather an energy rush.”

While wind energy may be cleaner than other forms of energy in terms of carbon dioxide emissions, “it may be quite harmful for the wild bird population, and the area around Osmaniye is a key bottleneck area for migratory birds,” Mr. Eken said. “This doesn't mean that the wind power will be definitely harmful, but that the issue does require proper investigation and assessments on biodiversity.”

Meanwhile, the investor Mr. Ozakat sees wind energy as a boon for the Turks themselves.

“This field has huge potential for the young people of Turkey in terms of jobs and cleaner air,” he said. “First we had the industrial boom, then the banking boom. I believe that the next big growth in Turkey will happen with the renewable energy sector. After all, everybody needs energy.”

Pakistan, Turkish Company Sign Agreement for Wind Energy

2010-11-05T02:38:00.000-07:00

Islamabad—Zorlu Enerji, the first company to establish wind farm for power generation in Pakistan, on Saturday signed Energy Purchase Agreement with Hyderabad Electric Supply Corporation for purchase of 6 MW electricity generated at the company’s facility in Jhimpir. The agreement was signed by Mr. Murat Sungar Bursa, President Zorlu Enerji, on behalf of Zorlu Eneji and Mr. Karim Buksh Qureshi, CEO HESCO representing HESCO. The signing ceremony was witnessed by Chairman AEDB / Minister Water & Power, Raja Pervez Ashraf and Turkish Ambassador Mr. Engin Soysal.

The signing of Energy Purchase Agreement between the IPP and HESCO took the country further closer to towards exploitation of its vast wind energy resource for meeting its growing energy needs. NEPRA has awarded tariff of US scents 12.1057 per KWh, which is cheaper than the electricity generated from thermal sources. The power generated from the first phase would be evacuated to Jhimphir grid station by HESCO and would be sufficient to electrify 6900 homes in Hyderabad region.

The Zorlu Enerji wind farm would be one of the cleanest power plants in the country displacing 10,500 tonnes of carbon dioxide every year, as compared to a fossil fuel power plant. Harnessing the strong winds coming from south west, the wind farm is first commercial wind power project of the country, comprising 5 towers in the first phase with an installed capacity of 1.2 MW wind turbine generator per tower. Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, Minister Water & Power/Chairman AEDB congratulated Mr. Murat Sungar Bursa, Zorlu Enerji President for undertaking the project that supports the government’s derive towards greater exploitation of renewable energy resources. He thanked the Turkish firm for its assistance in helping Pakistan enter the era of wind energy. Mr Ashraf said Pakistan is proud of its friendship with Turkey.

President of Pakistan would perform the inauguration of the land mark project in the first week of Feburary, said Chairman AEDB/ Minister Water & Power, Raja Pervez Ashraf with CEO AEDB and President Zorlu Enerji (Pvt) Ltd., “This project shows the Pakistan government’s persistence at tapping indigenous Renewable Energy sources as a strategy to meet growing energy needs”, said the AEDB chairman/ Minister Water & Power. We need a relentless effort to harness our own energy resources and not be forever held hostage by volatile international oil prices,” he added. “We have brotherly relations with Pakistan and Government has sent us here with a special message to do utmost in increasing trade and commerce. Additionally, we look forward cooperating with Pakistan in defence, agriculture and women empowerment for producing tangible results”, said the Turkish ambassador, Mr. Engin Soysal.

Mr. Arif Alauddin, CEO AEDB said the realization of wind farm represents an important milestone in the country’s strategy to in contribution of Renewable Energy sources. He said more of such good news particularly in the sector of waste to energy and hydro sector were in the pipeline. He thanked the federal government, federal minister for water and power, Sindh government, NTDC, CPPA, NEPRA, HESCO for their help in the setting up of the country’s first wind farm. The project which in subsequent phases would be expanded to a 50 MW wind farm is currently using gearless vensys 62 with 1.2 MW technology. President Zorlu Enerji (Pvt) Ltd., Mr. Murat Sungar Bursa speaking on this occasion said incentives offered by Pakistan ‘s Renewable Energy Policy were a major factor in the company’s decision to invest here.

D-8 countries are rich with natural resources. The growing world economic activity and industrial production in the past four decades has resulted in a significant increase in the demand of minerals globally. In recent years, international increased consumption has further boosted world minerals demand and prices. Thus creating incentives and opportunities for D-8 member countries to commercialize their mineral reserves.

At the 6th Summit of the D-8 in July 2008 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the Heads of State/Government of member countries reiterated their commitment to carry on the ideas of economic cooperation among D-8 countries, in all aspects of economic cooperation, including in energy. The Summit also adopted Roadmap of Developing Eight Countries for Economic and Social Cooperation in the Second Decade of Cooperation (2008-2018) which is meant to be the guidance of D-8 cooperation. Strengthened by the adoption of Kuala Lumpur Declaration at the 6th Summit, D-8 countries has reaffirmed their commitment to urgently address the energy issues through collaborative efforts in various areas.

D-8 has held the first D-8 Working Group on Mining and Minerals Meeting theming “A Resonant Minerals Sector for Sustainable Development”, in Bali, Indonesia, earlier in December 2008.

Indonesia recognizes the potential of D-8 countries which have endowed with abundant of various mineral resources, and therefore proposed cooperation in the areas of mining and minerals through a Working Group on Mining and Mineral, which was responded favourably by the member countries at the 4th D-8 working Group on Energy last June in Cairo.

In that first meeting of the WGMM, the objectives drawn particularly is for D-8 to set up its groundwork as the basis for future cooperation through WGMM, such as:

1. To find solution the recent global crisis situation issue and its impact regarding of mining and mineral industries through dialog and strong relationship among D-8 member country;
2. To exchange views on the latest issues, developments and trends in the fast growing areas of mining and minerals and to seek the possibility of formulating concrete D-8 cooperation programs through cooperation in industries, investments, trade, technology. And business;
3. To identify potencies, opportunities, challenges, and threats of D-8 in mining and minerals business/industries, as well as to attempt to facilitate the meeting among the stakeholders, such as government/regulators, companies, investors, private sectors and financial institutions/banks;
4. To appoint focal /contact point of the WGMM at respective member countries.

REpower signs inaugural Turkish deal

2010-11-05T02:29:00.000-07:00

German turbine maker, REpower Systems, has signed its first contract in Turkey, with Al Yel Elektrik, a subsidiary of Akuo Energy SAS.

REpower will supply 44 wind turbines each with a power of 3.37 MW and a hub height of 80 metres, for the Geycek wind farm in Kirsehir province East of Ankara. The turbines are to be delivered in summer 2011 and will be commissioned in coming months.

REpower is to provide a 12-year service and maintenance contract for the turbines.

With 44 turbines and a total generating capacity of 148.28 MW, Geycek is REpower’s biggest wind farm in Europe to date. Moreover, it is also the largest project so far to be fitted with turbines of the 3.XM series. The contract is subject to conditions precedent, the company said.

REpower intends to capitalise on opportunities in the Turkish market, where turbines with a generating capacity of almost 1,000 MW are already operational.

Turkey’s market allure was recently enhanced by the Turkish Government’s decision to revise existing procedures for granting licenses and the remuneration system for renewable energies in 2010.

Turkey - Wind energy key to meeting rising power demand

2010-10-29T23:47:00.000-07:00

Turkey has wind potential to produce 160 TWh (48,000 MW) of electricity, which is twice the current electricity consumption

Turkey must exploit its huge wind energy resources if it wants to meet its increasing power demand while becoming less dependent on energy imports, delegates heard at a workshop on integrating wind power organised by the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) in cooperation with the Turkish Wind Energy Association (TWEA/TÜREB) in Ankara.

Turkey's installed wind capacity tripled during 2007 from 50 MW to almost 150 MW. It tripled again during 2008 to reach 433 installed MW, and by the end of 2009 it had almost doubled to 801 MW. Moreover, the government announced a 30% objective for renewable energies by 2023 with plans to push wind energy up to 20,000 MW of installations for the same year.

"With an average growth in power demand of 8% each year, this means that if the 20,000 MW target is met, wind power will cover one fifth of Turkey's power demand by 2023" said Christian Kjaer, Chief Executive of EWEA. "Wind is clean, indigenous and above all can start producing power quickly – crucial for a country whose power demand is soaring. With huge wind energy potential, ambitious government targets and a recent track-record of rapid wind energy growth, Turkey could be one of the future wind energy movers and shakers, but numerous administrative hurdles must be overcome to attract more investments and manufacturing to the country."

According to the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources, Turkey has wind potential to produce 160 TWh (48,000 MW) of electricity, which is twice the current electricity consumption.

"Wind power is an opportunity for Turkey, and Turkey offers a market opportunity to wind energy investors and developers," said Murat Durak, Chairman of TÜREB. "However, in order to exploit this potential, permitting procedures must be optimised and the government must put in place a legal framework that offers stability and certainty to those who want to invest for the next 15 years. With such conditions Turkey will get enormous benefits in terms of energy security, jobs and economic growth, " he concluded.

In 2009, 39% of all new electricity generating capacity built in the EU was wind power, ahead of coal, gas and nuclear. The sector saw investments of about €13 billion in the EU. Annual installations of wind power have increased steadily over the last 15 years, with an annual average growth of 23%. A total of 74,767 MW is now installed in the EU, providing 4.8% of electricity demand.