Turkish village opts for wind energy

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.