Turkish Deputy Energy Minister Mercan

Less red tape, an optimised financing mechanism and talking to investors: these three steps are key to increasing wind power in Turkey, the country’s Deputy Energy Minister Mercan said.

Talking to EWEA at the 2013 Annual Event in Vienna this week, he said that slow administrative processes act as a “brake” but not a “block” on wind power investments.

He also spoke in favour of a more integrated power network with Europe, saying “We want to fully integrate the Turkish transmission system to the European network so that trade becomes easy.”

Turkey is one of the most promising – and ambitious – countries for wind energy, with a target of 20 GW by 2023, up from 2 GW today. Yet Deputy Minister Mercan said that while wind energy did have public support, there have been small communities in Turkey which have strongly opposed wind energy developments. He stressed the need to “improve knowledge of clean energy”.

EWEA’s new report, launched today at EWEA 2013, ‘Eastern Winds’, looks in detail at wind energy in Turkey, Russia, Ukraine and all the Central and Eastern European countries.

The latest issue of EWEA’s magazine Wind Directions takes a closer glance at four of these key markets: Turkey, Poland, Romania and Hungary.