Denmark’s independent designer and manufacturer of wind turbine blades, LM Wind Power (Lunderskov; www.lmwindpower.com), has broken ground on a 17,000 m² site at the Bergama Organized Industrial Zone (BOSBI) in Bergama / Turkey, where it will construct a facility for the manufacture and distribution of wind turbine blades. The investment, financial details of which were not disclosed, is expected to bring up to 450 skilled technical jobs to the area, ranging from manufacturing to engineering, services, administration and support.

Ben Malefijt, LM Wind Power’s vice president for industrialisation, said: “It is a great pleasure to be able to break ground for a new plant here in Bergama and we look forward to supporting the development of the area with the local authorities and business partners. In addition to the obvious geographical and logistical benefits this region presents, there’s a noteworthy local talent pool which can benefit from the opportunities.”

LM Wind Power’s investment in Turkey is supported by firm contractual commitments from a major customer, the company said. The factory's ramp up to production is expected to start by mid-2017 with an annual capacity of 500 MW and an efficient way to expand to 2 GW. The new plant in Turkey will be the fourteenth LM Wind Power blade manufacturing facility worldwide.

In August 2015, Turkey’s energy regulator, Ankara-based EPDK, announced that it was to auction contracts for 2,000 MW of wind power capacity in 2016, bringing forward a programme originally due to be completed by 2020. At that time, Turkey had over 4,000 MW of wind power from 101 plants, compared with 3,630 MW from 90 plants at the end of 2014. The country’s total power capacity stood at 71,900 MW in July 2016, according to Turkish state power transmission company Teias.