The Salman Electricity Wind Power Plant ofTurkey's Fina Enerji was opened in Izmir, a province in the Aegean region of Turkey, with the participation of Taner Yildiz, Turkey's energy and natural resources minister on Thursday.
The plant will have a capacity of 27.5 megawatts.
"We encourageinvestors to invest in coal, wind, solar, water and geothermal resources.Turkey imported less natural gas in 2014 and saved $850 million thanks to more renewable and local resources" Yildiz stated.
Turkey currently holds 3,700 megawatts of installed capacity in wind power while the country's total installed capacity was 70,000 megawatts as of March2015.
- Turkish Stream could be developed more
Turkey and Russia's Gazprom are still holding meetings to further expand the Turkish Stream natural gas pipeline, Yildiz said at the opening of the wind power plant in Izmir.
In December2014, Russia's Vladimir Putin announced the scrapping of theSouth Stream pipeline projectdue to a disagreement between Moscow and the European Union countries. Putin proposed a new route to deliver the gas to Europe through Turkey which was dubbed the "Turkish Stream". The projectis expected to have 63 billion cubic meters of gas, of which 15 billion cubic meters areplanned for Turkey while the rest will be delivered to Europe from Greece's border.
"The Turkish Stream is a project open formore development. Turkey and Gazprom still discuss this aspect," Yildizsaid.
"Even though Turkey is a shareholder of the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline, TANAP, we think the Turkish Stream can be developed," Yildiz stated.
(Anadolu Agency)
