Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Turkiye’s wind power sector continues to grow, albeit at a somewhat slower pace than at the beginning of this decade. The country gets 11% of its electricity from wind.
Turkiye is third in Europe for onshore wind power growth, It installed 1.5 gigawatts of new wind in 2024, more than any other European countries besides Germany and Finland.
The energy analysis firm Ember points out that percentage-wise, Turkiye is ahead of other Mediterranean countries such as “Italy (8.5%) and France (7.7%)” in the proportion of electricity it makes from wind.
In short, Turkiye is making significant progress but could exert more effort, as a G20 upper middle income country, to get to carbon zero. With a nominal GDP of $1.1 trillion, Turkiye is the world’s 16th largest economy, just behind Australia and Mexico, and surpassing the Netherlands and Poland. It has a substantial population, of 85 million — a little larger than Germany. Its per capita nominal GDP is $16,000, putting it ahead of Argentina, Russia and China on that score.
The Daily Sabah reports that $1.5 billion will likely be invested in new wind capacity in 2025.
Daily Sabah says that some 300 to 400 megawatts of wind are expected to be added to Turkiye’s grid annually over the next four years, so by 2029 there will likely be 3.5 gigawatts of wind capacity. It seems to be expecting a significant slowdown in the installation of new wind capacity, since Turkiye put in 1.5 gigawatts last year alone.
Turkiye is also planning offshore wind installations to reach 5 gigawatts by 2035. Despite that projection, the country as yet has no offshore wind farms.
Photo of wind turbine near Istanbul by Furkan Elveren: https://www.pexels.com/photo/silivri-istanbul-16830950/
At the moment, wind and solar combined produce 18% of Turkiye’s electricity, and hydro generates 22% of the country’s power. With geothermal and nuclear, some 45% of Turkish electricity was produced from low-carbon sources in 2024, In many of these statistics, Turkiye performs better than the global average, though note that 55% of its electricity still comes from dirty fossil fuels, especially coal, which is the dirtiest of all.
Turkiye still has woefully modest goals for the future, aiming only for 47% of its electricity to come from low-carbon sources by 2030, whereas even poor Morocco wants it to be 52%. Average global projections are for 60% renewables in the grid by 2030, so Turkiye is not being very ambitious, even compared to much poorer countries.
Still, renewables accounted for almost all new electricity generation in 2024. Of 6,182 electricity plants that were commissioned last year, 98% of new generating capacity came from renewables.
The Yokteka wind farm is going to benefit from Rolls Royce-installed batteries, which will allow it to store electricity produced by wind turbines when the wind is heavy for release when winds die down. Increased battery capacity is felt to be key to the growth of wind and solar power in Turkiye.
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