Turkey, Wind - Soma 

Project Location: Manisa Province, close to Izmir, Turkey

Project Type: Gold Standard VER Project

Emissions Reductions in STI Portfolio: 3,500 tonnes

Baseline (situation without project): Coal-intensive national grid

Project Status: Construction underway – commissioning expected by mid 2010.

Validation: Stakeholder Consultation complete, Under validation to the Gold Standard

Project Start: Mid 2010

Summary: Encouraging clean energy generation is of utmost importance in Turkey as consumer demand for power is rapidly increasing. Currently Turkey's electricity grid consists primarily of coal fired generation and a number of large scale hydro schemes. Fossil-fuelled power, however, is becoming more dominant – almost all of the new capacity added to the grid over the last 10 years has been from coal fired generation.  There is great potential for wind power in Turkey with many regions enjoying high year round wind speeds.

The Soma Wind Farm is planned as a 90 MW wind power project in the Izmir region of western Turkey. In total there will be 36 turbines each of 2.5 MW capacity. Construction is well underway, with commissioning expected in the first half of 2010. Its location will make the most of the good wind resource in this Aegean region.

The wind farm will create a number of employment opportunities both skilled and unskilled at the construction and operation stages of its development.