Türkiye’s Kalyon Holding and the country’s defense electronics company, Aselsan, agreed in principle to produce wind energy turbines locally, the head of Kalyon Holding announced on Thursday.
Speaking to Anadolu in an exclusive interview, Cemal Kalyoncu confirmed that the locally-produced turbines will be ready in two years for Kalyon’s wind energy projects within the scope of the Renewable Energy Resource Zone (YEKA) projects throughout the country.
YEKA projects enable Turkish investors and/or consortiums to invest in the domestic manufacture of equipment and large-scale electricity generation facilities.
In recent years, these projects have been the main drivers of growth in renewable energy, both in terms of technology development, equipment manufacture and electricity generation.
Turkey’s first integrated solar ingot-wafer-module-cell production factory, established by Kalyon Solar Energy Technologies Production Company, started production on Aug. 19, 2020.
Following the successful production of high-quality solar panels, Kalyoncu explained they intend to follow a similar path to succeed in the production of local, high-quality wind turbines.
A total of three separate factories will be established over the next two years solely dedicated to the manufacture of wind energy equipment.
‘We aim to produce wind turbines with 70% local content,’ he said.
Gear boxes for wind turbines will be produced in the capital Ankara in collaboration with Aselsan, and other parts of wind equipment will be produced in factories in Izmir and Istanbul.
As part of the government’s national energy plan to meet the country’s 2053 net zero emission targets, renewable energy in Türkiye, which had a 16.7% share in primary energy consumption in 2020, targets an increase to 23.7% by 2035.
The plan also calls for increasing installed electricity capacity from 95,900 MW in 2020 to 189,700 MW by 2035.
