Ankara, Turkey — Turkey has completed the privatization of most of 52 hydropower plants owned by Turkish Electricity Generation Company (EUAS), raising a total of $427.2 million from the offers received so far, according to wire service reports.
The privatization was held in 19 groups and will give the new stakeholders the right to manage hydro plants for 49 years.
The process was launched at the beginning of May and ended with the final negotiations for the 600-MW Dere and 1,040-MW Ivriz plants in the city of Konya, central Anatolia, wire reports indicate.
It was not immediately clear how much money was raised from the tender.
Recently, Canadian renewable energy firm Reservoir Capital Corp. signed a memorandum of understanding to acquire a 75 percent interest in six small hydroelectric projects in Turkey.
Construction of the small hydro projects is scheduled to begin in the second half of 2010, with the first hydropower plant coming on-line in early 2011 and the remainder in stages before the end of 2012, reports indicate. The projects have a planned combined capacity of about 30 megawatts, according to a press release.
