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Ormat successfully starts up three geothermal power plants in Turkey with more to come

Ormat successfully starts up three geothermal power plants in Turkey with more to come Emirler geothermal plant by Ormat Technologies (source: company)
Alexander Richter 9 Nov 2020

In the month of October 2020, Ormat Technologies brought three geothermal power plants online for customers in Turkey. With an additional three plants under construction, Ormat represents today around 50% of the total installed geothermal capacity in the country.

The month of October has seen yet another milestone Turkey, a country that – like no other – has seen a tremendous growth of its geothermal power generation capacity. Breaking into the 1 GW club in 2017, Turkey continues to see unprecedented growth despite the current market challenges and has now reached a total installed geothermal power generation capacity of 1,606 MW being ranked no. 4 in the world of the top geothermal countries.

Ormat Technology has played a major role in the build up of the Turkish geothermal market. The past month has seen the company start three geothermal power plants it supplied to customers in the country. Among the plants are the 3.5 MWe Emirler geothermal power plant, a new business for its owner Halil Pekdemir and the 20 MWe Nezihe Beren geothermal power plant of Maren.

The Emirler geothermal plant was built for the Pekdemir business. The company is active in the agriculture market, growing and distributing agriculture products to supermarkets. They also own their own supermarket chain. The company is a large agriculture land owner in the area around Denizli.

Several years ago Mr. Pekdemir found geothermal resource in his land. First, he used it to heat and cultivate some of his greenhouse. But with the discovery of a stronger resource in Emirler, the company chose Ormat Technologies to explore on how it could develop the resource for power generation. In early December 2019, Pekdemir and Ormat signed a contract for the delivery of a first unit of 3.5 MWe capacity.

“We are very proud that, with the full support of Pekdemir team, headed by Sinan Akbay, we succeeded to deliver and install the first unit in a record time of less than 11 months. Now we are planning the continuation- Emirler JES 2 and other areas in the future.”, so Gad Shoshan, International Sales and Marketing Marketing Director for Ormat Technologies.

The second plant that was built by Ormat and successfully started operation in October 2020 is the 20 MWe Nezihe Beren geothermal power plant, another geothermal power plant of Maren, one of Kipas Holding companies. The Maren group signed the contract for its first geothermal power plant in the Germencik area with Ormat in February 2010. The Irem geothermal plant started operation in 2011 with an installed capacity of 20 MW.

Ormat signed the contract with Maren for the delivery of the Nezihe Beren geothermal plant in June 2019. The plant started operation in October 2020. The plant is Maren’s 7th geothermal power plant and with the Ken Kipas 1 & 3 and the Kiper 1 geothermal power plant the Kipas Holding group has. Now 10 power plants. With a total rated gross capacity of 197 MW.

With the delivery of these plants, the total number of geothermal power plants delivered by Ormat to Turkish customers reaches 40 with an additional 3 plants currently under construction.

Based on our data, Ormat Technologies share in delivered geothermal power generation capacity in Turkey is more than 50% with a total of around 801 MWe delivered so far. With the  three additional plants  under construction, there are an additional 92 MW added by the company.

Source: Company release