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Akfen Renewable Energy, the renewables arm of Turkey’s Akfen Holding, has secured a total of USD 363 million in lending from six banks for its USD 530 million project to build four new wind farms and nine solar photovoltaic (PV) plants with a combined capacity of 327 MW.
Akfen Renewable Energy is providing USD 167 million from own sources for the project, backed by lending from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), Germany’s KfW IPEX-Bank, and Turkey’s Isbank, Vakifbank, Garanti Bank, and Yapi Kredi Bank, according to reports.
The EBRD’s financing package of up to USD 102 million was announced earlier.
Akfen Renewable Energy, or Akfen Yenilenebilir Enerji as it is known in Turkey, owns and operates wind, solar, and hydropower plants. The EBRD and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, are minority shareholders in the company with a 15.98% stake each.
The company is investing in four new wind farms with a total capacity of 242 MW: Ucpinar (99 MW), Kocalar (26 MW), and Hasanoba (51 MW) in Canakkale, a province in northwestern Turkey on the Dardanelles Strait, and Denizli (66 MW) in the eponymous province in the south-west of the country.
The wind farms, once operational, are expected to save around 340,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per year.
The combined capacity of the nine new solar PV plants will be 85 MW.
“With the projects that we will realise, we are taking firm steps towards our aim to reach a total installed capacity of 1,000 MW in clean energy generation by 2020. We will continue to make new investments and potential acquisitions, especially in the wind power sector, in the forthcoming period,” said Kayril Karabeyoglu, CEO of Akfen Renewable Energy, said earlier.
Turkey aims to install 27 GW of non-hydro renewable generation capacity by 2023, 20 GW of which is expected to be wind and 5 GW licensed solar.
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