OREANDA-NEWS. Dr. Frank Mastiaux, CEO of EnBW Energie Baden-Wurttemberg AG, and Agah Ugur, CEO of Borusan, gave the green light today for the further development of five wind farm projects of the German-Turkish joint-venture Borusan EnBW Enerji. At a ceremony to mark the event, a framework agreement was signed with Vestas, one of the world's foremost wind-turbine manufacturers, for a wind farm portfolio totalling 207 megawatts. The portfolio is to be realised over the course of further development work under the various projects. The combined awarding of the wind power portfolio marks EnBW's biggest onshore project contact to date and also the largest in the entire Turkish wind energy market.

The construction measures for the first project involving an extension to the Bandirma Wind Farm are to commence shortly. All in all, 67 Vestas V112 wind turbines are to be built in stages in five locations in Turkey. Each turbine will have a hub height of 84 meters, a rotor diameter of 112 meters and an output of around 3 megawatts. The annual production anticipated as from the end of 2015 amounts to 721 gigawatt hours, enough to supply 200,000 households with wind power electricity.

"I am delighted to be here in Istanbul today and congratulate the Joint Venture and all employees involved in the success of this major project. Our commitment in Turkey is an important building block of our corporate strategy and is based on our long-term strategic assessment of the Turkish energy market, which takes account of the generation capacities and technologies needed, above all in the expansion of renewable energies. Abundant wind and the good, strong partnership with Borusan are the best preconditions for leveraging our opportunities here as well. We pursue ambitious goals in the expansion of renewable energies in our generation portfolio. The signing of this agreement today has taken us a big step closer to achieving this goal", as CEO Dr. Frank Mastiaux stated.

In his speech, Agah Ugur, CEO of Borusan, emphasised that Borusan only implements sustainable investments with a long-term horizon together with EnBW. "Sustainability is a key factor for success and core determinant of our present as well as our future. Our work ethics obligate us to handle the world's increasingly scarce resources responsibly. Derived from this responsibility, we have taken the decision to realise one of the largest onshore wind farm portfolios in Europe. Borusan EnBW Enerji's audacious step marks a milestone on the way to using the huge renewable energies potential of Turkey", said Agah Ugur.

Borusan EnBW Enerji, a company headquartered in Istanbul, was founded in the summer of 2009 as a joint venture between EnBW and the Turkish company Borusan. The aim of the joint venture is to expand Turkey's generation capacity by some 2,000 megawatts, primarily in the field of renewable energy. In the Yedigol Aksu hydropower plant and the Bandirma Wind Farm, the Joint Venture has an installed renewable energies capacity of 111 megawatts to date. In the second half of 2014, another 50 megawatt wind farm is to go online in Balabanli. Planning is under way for more wind and hydro power projects which will be realised in stages.