The World Bank is developing a long-term offshore wind road map for Turkey, and will also help the country prepare for a tender in the next few years, a senior official tells Recharge.

Turkey first announced a plan for a 1.2GW offshore wind auction in mid-2018, to be allocated under its YEKA support scheme, but gave scarce information about the plan and cancelled it a little later.

The World Bank now is managing the disbursement of EU funds to support studies ahead of a second attempt at an auction.

“The intention there is to make them better prepared for starting a tender again,” World Bank senior energy specialist Mark Leybourne told Recharge.

“That [EU] money will support things like wind measurements, assessment of ground conditions... looking at feasibility, and potentially environmental aspects as well.”

Offshore wind feasibility and other studies typically take a year or two, plus lead-in time, Leybourne explained, adding a new tender could be carried out “at the earliest two or three years from now.”

Turkey’s seas

Turkey is surrounded by the Aegean Sea to its west (a bay of the Mediterranean), the main part of the Mediterranean to its south, and the Black Sea to its north. Also, the small Sea of Marmara separates the Aegean and the Black Sea close to Turkey's largest city and economic centre, Istanbul.

Sean Whittaker, principle industry specialist at the bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) unit, estimates wind speeds in Turkey’s part of the Black Sea at 7-7.5 metres per seconds (m/s) in mostly deep waters.

The World Bank Group says Turkey has the technical potential for 75GW of offshore wind within 200km of its coasts — 63GW of floating wind and 12GW with bottom-fixed foundations.

The sites under assessment are in the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara, but at this point not in the Aegean or Mediterranean.

For the cancelled tender attempt in 2018, Turkey had been eyeing three sites in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.

“That is not to say the next tender for Turkey won’t be in the Mediterranean. It is just that the [EU] funding in particular isn’t going to be looking at the sites in the Mediterranean,” Leybourne said.

Potential sites in the Aegean could be limited due to the closeness of several Greek islands to Turkish shores, which gives Greece the rights to the vast majority of the sea.

Road map

But the World Bank is looking at Mediterranean sites as part of its long-term offshore road map, which is independent of EU funding.

“As part of the road map, we are looking at all of Turkish waters, we are looking at fixed and floating, and we are looking at a longer-term future,” Leybourne said.

The road map will be exploring the strategic placement of offshore wind in the country’s energy system, and its benefits, as well as “what role the offshore wind industry could have for future of Turkey,” he added.

The bank has also told Recharge it is starting to map out the offshore wind potential of Azerbaijan's chunk of the Caspian Sea, to the east of the Black Sea.

Romania

Turkey is in a race with Romania to build the first offshore wind array in the Black Sea.

While the World Bank is not mapping out Romania’s offshore wind potential, it has estimated that the country has the technical potential to erect 76GW of turbines (54GW of floating and 22GW of fixed-foundation) in its portion of the Black Sea, which has stronger winds (about 8-9m/s) than the Turkish part and more shallow water sites, according to Whittaker.

Romania's state-controlled power company Hidroelectrica also has already said it plans to build a first 300MW offshore wind project, but hasn’t yet revealed any details.

In November, the nation's upper house of parliament, the Senate, approved a law to establish a support system for offshore wind in the Black Sea. But the legislation still has to be approved by the lower house, the Chamber of Deputies, and it is unclear when that might happen.

Clear and transparent rules are a prerequisite for the successful build-up of an offshore wind industry, Whittaker stressed.

“We would hope that they [the Romanians] would put in place long-term, big-picture thinking that is required to really attract the top-notch developers, equipment suppliers, and to build up a long-term sustainable industry, because you can’t do offshore wind in a piecemeal fashion,” Whittaker said.

“Just by the nature of its size, its complexity, [offshore wind] needs to have a plan, not only from an energy perspective, but from associated infrastructure, ports and vessels, logistics.”

Poland as springboard

Offshore wind in Eastern Europe could be kicked off by Poland, which has a coast on the Baltic Sea, where offshore wind farms are already operating in neighbouring countries' waters. Poland recently passed legislation for offshore wind that aims to install 5.9GW by 2030, and 11GW by 2040.

“Many developers in the offshore wind industry would see Poland as a springboard for non-Western European Markets. You would have to think that it is a bit of a trial run,” Whittaker said.

“If Poland has success, then many others are going to build on that. Particularly in the Black Sea.”

Wind

Turkish offshore wind tender could be held 'in next two or three years', says World Bank