Turkey has remarkable wind energy potential. but its utilisation rate is very low However, in 2007. energy investors applied to the Energy Market Regulatory Authority (EMRA) with 751 wind projects to obtain a 78180 2 MW wind power plant license This paper first presents an overview of wind energy development in the world and then reviews related situations in Turkey Second, to motivate the interest in wind energy investment, new wind power plant license applications in Turkey are analysed. Finally, wind electricity generation cost analyses were performed at 14 locations in Turkey Capacity factors of investigated locations were calculated between 19.7% and 56 8%, and the production cost of electrical energy was between 1 73 and 4.99 $cent/kW h for two different wind shear coefficients (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved