The Engineer

Gama invests in wind energy

News

Gama Energy, a joint venture between Gama Holding and GE Financial Services, has announced its first wind-energy projects in Turkey - the 22.5MW Sares and 10MW Karadag wind farms in the country’s western region.

The projects, costing a total of €54m (£47m), will use GE’s 2.5MW wind turbines.

Gama Energy, based in Ankara, is developing and investing in the projects while TSKB, the Industrial Development Bank of Turkey, is arranging and leading €44m (£38m) in debt financing.

GE Energy is supplying 13 turbines and will operate and maintain them under a services agreement.

Construction of the Sares wind farm begins next week and is expected to be completed by the end of this year. Construction of the Karadag project is planned to begin later this year, with completion during the first quarter of 2011.

Turkey aims to generate 20 per cent of its electricity production from renewable resources by 2020. So far, the country has just 600MW of wind power out of an estimated potential of 88GW.