Economic Evaluation of Onshore Wind Energy Plants for Turkey

Abstract

Wind energy has the fastest growing rate of alternative energy sources with a 92% learning curve value. At the end of the 2008, global installed wind power reached 121,000 MW.

The electricity requirements of Turkey are covered mostly from hydroelectric and thermic sources. The annual growth rate of electricity demand is expected to be between 6.3% and 8.4% from 2009 to 2016. Turkey's wind energy potential is 47,849 MW, and 15,000 MW of this potential is the current wind energy target of Turkey until 2015. Capital and operational costs of 15,000 MW of wind energy investment are 18,750 million € and 512 million € per year.

The main goals of this article are to explain the current electricity market of Turkey, to give basic information about economic parameters of wind energy investments, and to show economic data of the 15,000 MW onshore wind energy investment in Turkey as a scenario study.

Keywords:

• energy supply security
• Turkish electricity market
• wind energy investment costs