GE enters into a MOU with local partners to develop Turkey's biggest wind park

General Electric (GE), Borusan EnBW Enerji, Fina Enerji and Özgül Holding signed Memorandum of Understanding to collaborate on the installation, operation and financing of a joint wind farm as part of the YEKA, the largest wind project in renewable energy in Turkey.

Contributing to the renewable energy portfolio of Turkey, the wind YEKA project will see preliminary preparations on financing and project by the companies.

According to sources, the four partners will contribute a total of amount of US$1.3 billion as part of the project, including US$100 million in a wind turbine factory, with GE spending itself around US$350 million.

Ruhan Temeltaş, General Manager, GE MENAT Onshore Wind Energy said:

 “The YEKA Project, which will diversify Turkey's energy portfolio, is thus critical for Turkey to achieve its goals in renewable energy industry. At GE, we have been maintaining investments and collaborations in Turkey with 2,000 employees for the past seven decades, and together with all our teams, we are ready to tap into our knowledge and expertise of wind energy to contribute to our country's development and achievement of targets. We are supporting our country's energy targets through this agreement with our valuable partners."

Agah Uğur, Chairman of the Board of Borusan EnBW Enerji said: 

“The reduction of current account deficit and dependency on energy imports are the main axes of Turkey’s energy policy. In this sense, we continue our investments without slowing down with the vision of being a leading energy generation company in the field of wind energy, which is a domestic and renewable energy source and make a great contribution to reach the targets of Turkey’s energy policy. We think that YEKA will become an important development platform for large-scale projects through sectoral collaborations. Strategically, we believe that we will create a synergy in this area by combining our company’s renewable energy experience and knowledge with the competencies of our partners."

Murat Özyeğin, Chairman of the Board, Fina Enerji Holding A.Ş. said: 

“As Fina Enerji Holding, we have managed to become one of the leading investors in the renewable energy sector in Turkey. We believe that our experience and Fiba Group’s support behind us will play an important role in this strong partnership and make a significant contribution to the YEKA process, one of the most important pillars of our country's domestic energy policies. The YEKA project will enable efficient fields to be put into use in a relatively short time and provide us a unique opportunity to reach our targets in renewable energy.”

Ömer Faruk Özgül, Chairman, Özgül Holding said:

 "Wind energy plant is different from other renewable energy plants; It is an investment that needs to be evaluated on a coordinate basis (turbine coordinates), not on a project site basis. Since the wind power plant will be evaluated on a unit cost basis, the more the installed power is increased, the lower the fixed costs will be. For this reason, the greater the allocation of connection capacity for the YEKA project, the investment can be more feasible. In this framework, I believe our cooperation will contribute to Turkey's renewable energy targets."