Siemens and Turkish partners win billion-dollar wind energy tender

A consortium of German giant Siemens and Turkey's Türkerler and Kalyon Enerji holdings won a billion-dollar wind energy tender on Aug. 3, offering the lowest price to the state with $3.48 cents per kilowatt hour.   

A consortium of Chinese company Mingyang and Turkish company İlk İnşaat competed until the end of the reverse auction before getting eliminated, quitting in the 30th round. 

The tender came at a time when Turkish economy officials accelerated efforts to tone down a recent row with Germany, vowing that German investments in Turkey were safe and citing a "communication mistake" for reports about an anti-terror probe against hundreds German companies in the country. 

"The tender ended with a win by German company Siemens. We can say that this picture sends an important message to the region and the world," Energy Minister Berat Albayrak told the media after the auction. 

"When the 200-year-old cooperation between Turkey and Germany is considered, I think this result will make an important contribution to Turkish-German relations," he added. 

Eight consortia, including four German giants, participated in the Energy Ministry's 1,000-megawatt (MW) wind power project tender on July 27.

In addition to the German and Chinese firms, Danish Vestas also took part in the bidding, as well as the U.S.'s General Electric, along with their local partners. 

The winning consortium is expected to make an investment of more than $1 billion in the project, which stipulates the gradual local production of wind turbines.

Albayrak said the locally produced turbines would be installed by early 2019 and added that the price was a record. 

For his part, Siemens Gamesa Turkey CEO Hakan Yıldırım noted...