We conducted an interview with Batuhan İldaş, General Coordinator of Doğuhan Enerji. Mr. Batuhan provided information about the company and its fields of activity, and also shared his evaluations regarding the sector. We leave you alone with this interview.
First of all, could you briefly introduce yourself and your company?
My name is Batuhan İldaş. After completing my undergraduate education in Metallurgical and Materials Engineering at Istanbul Technical University, my master’s degree in Business Administration at Galatasaray University, and various training programs at international educational institutions abroad, I am currently serving as the General Coordinator at Doğuhan Enerji, together with the work and experience I gained and completed on project sites within the company.
Doğuhan Enerji is a company that serves investors and turbine manufacturers with quality services in the wind energy sector only, primarily in construction works, as well as in construction, electrical, and mechanical works. It has been serving wind power plant investments for approximately 20 years and has contributed labor and services to the completion of more than 60 projects, comprising over 700 turbines and more than 1,600 MW in total.
With our modern infrastructure solutions, we minimize energy losses and adopt environmentally sensitive approaches at every stage of the project. In this way, we both protect resources and reduce long-term operating costs.
2017 was considered the golden year of wind energy in Türkiye. How do you evaluate the development and potential of the sector?
The success in 2017 was actually somewhat evident from 2016, but in real terms, it would be more accurate to define both 2016 and 2017 as successful figures that remained below their potential. I think that 2018, and even 2019, will result in lower capacity than the last two years due to the 3,000 MW and YEKA tenders being held later than planned.
In terms of market development, project developers were the biggest problem in the previous period. Apart from the newly distributed pre-licenses and YEKA, 80 percent of the projects whose construction had not started were in the hands of project developers. They were also trying to generate returns. If such a problem had been solved in the previous period and these licenses had been realized under the control of serious investors in the sector, we could have doubled the figures that we now consider successful.
With the tender regulations for YEKA and the 3,000 MW pre-licenses, this problem has been prevented; however, this time it is not difficult to foresee that investors will face financing models and resource-related problems. Starting from 2020, with the abolition of YEKDEM, electricity prices in the market, exchange rates and parities that are variable and constantly increasing, as well as pre-licenses that had to be obtained with negative kuruş bids, I believe that investors will once again commission and operate these plants through great sacrifices.
In addition, I think that the obstacles and difficulties experienced in applications related to capacity increases of existing operational power plants unfortunately slow down the development and pace of the sector.
Doğuhan Enerji is also a company that performs construction works in wind energy projects. Could you provide information on this?
As Doğuhan Enerji, we provide services with high capacity in all construction works of wind power plants, including internal and external site access roads, crane platforms required for turbine installation, turbine foundations executed with extremely high quality and precision in accordance with the project, administrative buildings and switchyards, and cable trench works between turbines.
In addition to these services, we also offer our customers services such as the preparation of layout projects for access roads and crane platforms by our own teams, as well as scopes such as drilling works that form the basis of turbine foundation design and the preparation of turbine foundation projects together with our partner companies, supported by the experience we have gained on project sites.
During the approximately 20 years we have been serving the sector, we have had the opportunity to work with many different investors and turbine suppliers on the largest projects. From every company we work with, we learn many things that help us improve ourselves both in terms of engineering understanding and organizational structure and quality approach, and with every project we gain experience aimed at increasing both our working capacity and our quality.
The biggest feature that distinguishes our company from others is that we can adapt to the dynamics and needs of every project. We are a company that likes to be involved in projects with a high pace and working capacity. For example, we completed Polat Enerji’s 169 MW Geycek WPP project, in terms of mechanical capacity, including access roads, switchyard and administrative building, preparation of crane platforms, and most importantly an average of 20 turbine foundation works per month, within as short a period as 6 months.
We have delivered all the projects we have served quickly and with high quality, earlier than scheduled, and we have even brought forward the commissioning schedules of many projects beyond their targeted dates.
We act with the awareness that investors realize these projects under very difficult bureaucratic conditions and with great sacrifices; for this reason, we always aim to contribute both to the national economy and to the financing goals of investor companies by ensuring that these power plants are commissioned as early and as quickly as possible. Accordingly, in many projects we also have the experience and priorities of preventing the consumption of financial resources beyond what is necessary, through our suggestions to investors such as project revisions or the revision of works carried out on site.
I would also like to state that having a team of colleagues who truly love what they do and devote themselves day and night is the greatest contributor to and source of value behind this success.
Could you provide information about the projects you are preparing to implement in the short or long term?
As a short-term target, we aim to expand the services we have been providing domestically for a long time into countries such as certain Balkan/Caucasus and/or Middle Eastern countries with which we are currently in discussions. We have certain goals in order to play a role in the realization of the investments that Turkish investors or the turbine manufacturers we serve are planning to make in these countries.
As a medium/long-term target, we aim to technically obtain the necessary knowledge and expertise regarding the construction processes of offshore investments that are planned to be evaluated within the scope of YEKA in the near future, and to expand our service scope to a level that will allow us to work on these investments, which are foreseen to take part in the future of the sector, with the right engineering approach.
How do you evaluate the competitive environment in the market?
If we evaluate it from the perspective of investors, conditions have really become very difficult for companies and groups that survive through investment and have to maintain continuity.
With it becoming extremely difficult for operational power plants to obtain capacity increases, investors are left only with the 3,000 MW pre-license competitions held a short time ago, and in order to win these tenders, they became entitled to obtain pre-licenses with negative figures.
Of course, it is difficult for us to predict the feasibility or long-term forecasts of investments, but I hope that in the future, together with a decrease in investment costs, conditions will become more suitable and favorable for these power plants, which are commissioned after difficult and lengthy processes even with the YEKDEM mechanism.
The competitive environment in the works within our scope is becoming increasingly harsh under the conditions I mentioned above. Even though we have a manufacturing scope that accounts for 5–10% of the project budget, investors are forced to turn to the cheapest companies in order to save on their budgets, which further sharpens the competitive environment in the market. We now have to struggle with a process in which evaluations are made solely based on price rather than on a price/performance assessment.
Finally, is there anything you would like to add?
Last year, 4,000 MW was tendered in wind energy. This is a very important capacity. It was something the sector had been waiting for for a long time. I hope that a new momentum will begin here for Türkiye.
Our greatest wish is that, in order for lower energy prices to become a reality, the financing processes for these tenders and other tenders will be successfully closed, and that with these investments rapidly affecting our lives, we will gain access to cheaper and cleaner energy.
In the long term, in addition to reducing the country’s energy costs, the adaptation and success of these investments and their sustainable continuity in the future will be promising for our country.
Source: https://www.ruzgarenerjisi.com.tr/projenin-dinamiklerine-ve-ihtiyaclarina-adaptasyon-gosteriyoruz/