Türkiye has up to 150,000 megawatts of wind energy potential, offering vast investment opportunities, according to Alparslan Bayraktar, Türkiye’s minister of energy and natural resources, on Tuesday.
Bayraktar revealed during his opening remarks at the 12th Turkish Wind Energy Congress in Istanbul—an event in which Anadolu is a global communication partner—that wind energy provides about 11% of Turkey’s electricity needs.
The country currently has approximately 12,000 megawatts of wind energy installed capacity, with an annual turnover of approximately €2 billion.
According to the energy ministry’s latest Wind Energy Potential Atlas, the country has 100,000 megawatts of wind potential based on present conditions and technology. However, with the development of wind turbine technologies, this could rise to 150,000 megawatts.
‘Considering our current installed capacity, this potential means an additional capacity of approximately 140,000 megawatts, corresponding to an investment of $140 billion in today’s figures,’ the minister said.
According to Bayraktar, Türkiye’s power demand will rise ‘by more than 3% annually in the next 20 years,’ and in that time, the proportion of electricity in total energy demand is expected to rise to 30%.
Given this significant rise in demand, he said that energy efficiency, renewable energy, nuclear, hydrogen, storage technologies, digitalization and critical minerals will play critical roles in the nation’s electricity transformation.
‘Utilizing solar and wind energy at the highest possible level, making the necessary investments in the transmission and distribution network, supporting technologies such as storage, hydrogen and digitalization, and supporting global supply chain diversity with domestic technology development are vital to meeting increasing demand,’ he stressed.
