Turkey’s Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources has opened a tender for 1 GW of wind power projects which are to be developed at four locations in the country. According to the Turkish Official Gazette, the country will procure power from these projects for a period of 15 years.

Per the Gazette, the projects will be developed in Balikesir, Canakkale, Aydin, and Mugla provinces.  All of these four provinces are located in the western region of Turkey.

The deadline for the bidders to submit bids is March 7, 2019. According to the notification, each location is slated to have a wind project of 250 MW capacity, totaling 1 GW spread across the four locations.

This is the second 1 GW wind tender issued by the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources in Turkey. Back in August 2017, the ministry had awarded 1 GW of wind projects to a consortium comprising Siemens Gamesa, Kalyon Enerji, and Turkerler Holding, in the country’s first-ever wind reverse auction.

In that wind auction, a tariff of $0.348/kWh was quoted. According to the tender requirements, the winner also had to set up and establish a local wind turbine factory in the country. During the first stage, the turbine assembly plant was to supply locally-manufactured components required for the development of 1 GW of wind projects which had been slated to be complete within the first 21 months after the award of the contract.

These recent initiatives undertaken in the country are testament to the fact that this middle-eastern country is committed towards increasing its share of renewables to 30 percent of the national energy mix. Per Turkey’s vision for 2023, the country plans to install 20,000 MW of wind energy by then.

Recently, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) announced that it has expanded its operations in Europe and Central Asia with investment commitments reaching $2.9 billion. IFC’s largest commitments during the last fiscal year were in Turkey ($1.1 billion), Romania ($336.4 million), Serbia ($190.5 million), Ukraine ($129.1 million) and Kazakhstan ($111.5 million).