20 Jul 2020 İZMİR BECOMES LEADING PRODUCTION CENTER FOR WIND TECH
Türkiye has foreign trade surplus in wind energy equipment, secretary general of İzmir’s development agency says
Türkiye’s western province of İzmir has become the production center for wind energy technologies in Türkiye and in Eastern Europe, İzmir Development Agency’s (IZKA) Secretary-General Mehmet Yavuz told Anadolu Agency on Monday.
Yavuz said that nearly 20% of wind power plants in Türkiye with an installed capacity of 1,462 megawatts (MW) are located in İzmir. Taking into account plants under construction and planned licensed wind power plants, this amount could shortly reach 1,700 MW, according to Yavuz.
Türkiye’s Aegean region with its high winds is suitable for wind energy generation and hosts 38% of Türkiye’s wind power plants. Yavuz said the current installed capacity of wind plants in the Aegean region at 2,868 MW could increase further and he forecasts it could reach as much as 3,500 MW soon when the projects either under construction or planned are finalized.
For the production of wind energy equipment, Izmir is the natural choice as a production center selected by big international companies such as Enercon, Siemens Gamesa, General Electric LM Wind Power, TPI composites, CS Wind, according to Yavuz.
“A strong supply chain has been created in İzmir also thanks to local firms such as Ates Celik, Dirinler Dokum, Norm Civata and Tibet Makina. Nearly $2 billion of investments have been made in the wind sector and over 5,000 new jobs have been created in the wind energy equipment manufacturing sector only,” Yavuz stressed.
The large amount of exports from İzmir is a testament to its success as an export region, he said.
Research by the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Türkiye (TEPAV) released back in 2017 shows that Türkiye has a foreign trade surplus in wind energy equipment, according to Yavuz.
“While the country exported nearly $4 billion worth of equipment in 2015, it imported $2.9 billion worth of wind energy equipment. Most of these exports were made by wind energy equipment producers in İzmir and firms that formed a supply chain around these exports,” Yavuz explained.
LM Wind Power, a GE Renewable Energy [GE] business in the Bergama district of İzmir, exported its first blades to Australia less than six months after the factory’s inauguration last year.
“The export of a total of 99 blades manufactured in Türkiye to Australia, each measuring more than 63.7 meters, shows that the equipment produced in İzmir is preferred globally. This factory continues its efforts to be one of the most important turbine blade factories worldwide,” he said.
-IZKA to kickstart EU project with €3 million budget
The wind energy sector, which is a ‘priority area’ for IZKA, has the potential to show an even more rapid development, according to Yavuz.
And the work of IZKA is part of this success with its involvement in supporting investors and local businesses in getting their projects off the ground.
“We have some services and supports for the investors accordingly. Along with consultancy, we help investors in getting permits and licenses, so their projects can be realized as soon as possible. We also provide financial aid. We allocated nearly 35 million Turkish liras ($6.15 million) to 54 projects under two financial support programs,” he explained.
These support programs also helped clustering efforts in the renewable energy sector in İzmir. For example, two small and medium-sized enterprises were able to transfer their small firms into bigger production businesses with high added value, according to Yavuz.
“Once producing towers for billboards, one of the businesses is now producing towers for wind turbines. The other one was producing small bearings for machines and is now producing bigger bearings for wind turbines,” he said.
Now the clustering activities are gaining even more momentum with IZKA preparing to conduct an EU project with a budget of €3 million ($3.34 million) in the second half of 2020, he added.
– İzmir could lead in sustainable development to counter climate change
Yavuz expressed hope that developments in the wind sector would facilitate a similarly rapid rise in the solar energy sector also.
“The allocation of more than $1 trillion every year is expected to combat climate change worldwide,” he said.
In the face of climate change, which Yavuz considers is one of the biggest threats that face humanity and one of the main combat areas for sustainable development, he argued that İzmir could undertake a leading role in Türkiye in climate change efforts through the transition to clean energy.
Source :
By Ebru Sengul
energy@aa.com.tr