Turkish Aegean city becomes production base of wind turbine blades

Turkish Aegean city Izmir, which has the highest installed capacity in wind energy within the country, has become the production base of turbine blades, which play an essential role in converting wind into energy. The energy crisis, emerging after the bottleneck in the supply of resources or price increases in the world, raises the value of domestic energy resources, and global climate change requires clean and renewable energy production. In Türkiye, the share of wind energy in the installed electric power has approached 11% thanks to the investments. The country's wind energy capacity exceeds 11,400 megawatts, consisting of power plants in 47 provinces. Izmir has installed a power of 1754.9 megawatts in wind energy. There are four turbine blade production facilities within three companies in Izmir, and these facilities provide direct employment for over 6,000 people this year. The production provides a turnover of over $700 million and an export of more than $500 million. Approximately 4,000 blades are produced annually in Izmir, while more than 75% of the production is exported. Alper Kalaycı, the chair of the Energy Industrialists and Business Association, said Izmir exports turbine blades all around the world, excluding China. There is no other city in the world with as much employment and export as Izmir, neither on the European side nor on the American side, he added. Gökhan Serdar, the senior deputy chairman responsible for the EMEA region of TPI Composites, said there are three reasons for becoming a production base in this field; wind, ports and human resource.