Work has begun on the Chinese funded $1.7bn coal plant that is situated in southern Turkey, near to the Syrian border. Located in the coastal town of Yumurtalik, in the Adana province, the Hunutlu Thermal Plant broke ground on Sunday making it China’s largest-ever direct investment in Turkey. The plant will be built under the tag of Belt and Road initiative where Turkey forms the part of the middle corridor. As per the Dutch Finance watchdog BankTrac, the project is funded by Emba Electricity Production, a part of Shanghai Electric Power, the Avic International Project Engineering Company, and two confidential Turkish investors. Shanghai Electric Power holds the majority of shares at a little over 78%.
The plant will be set up by the end of 2021 and is likely to generate 1.3GW of power. It is also expected to generate 9 billion kilowatt-hours every year after going full throttle. This would lead to its estimated contribution of 3% of all electricity supplies in Turkey. The best part is that the plant itself has a port in it to receive coal. Wang Yundan, Chief Executive of Shanghai Electric is of an opinion that the plant is aimed at providing employment, help boost Turkey’s economy and also promote sustainable power generation. He further adds that the company aims to build a clean and reliable power plant with high efficiency. Hunutlu Thermal Plant project was approved in 2015.
Mahmut Demirtas, Governor of Adana province attended the ceremony marking the start of the project. And said that the Hunutlu Power Plant adopts world’s advanced technologies through which they will make a great contribution to the country’s economy and also the local community. He also added that the project while getting constructed will make efforts to preserve the local environment and heritage and also prove to be a benchmark in China-Turkey relations.