Yatağan Power Station is a coal-fired power station in Turkey in Yatağan, Muğla Province in the south-west of the country.
Currently owned by Aydem Enerji[1] it has a 120m chimney. Yatağan thermal power plant consumes 5.4 million tons of coal from mines such as Turgut[2] and can produce 3,780 GWh annually, the least productive power station in Turkey.[3] The area is a sulfur dioxide air pollution hotspot[4] and as of 2017[update] the air pollution caused by Yatağan and neighboring Kemerköy power station and Yeniköy power station is estimated to have caused 45,000 premature deaths.[5] It is estimated that closing the plant by 2030, instead of when its licence ends in 2063, would prevent over 9000 premature deaths.[6] Two workers were killed in 2018 and the plant's safety has been criticized by the Chamber of Engineers.[7]
In 2018 the plant received 70 million lira capacity payments,[8] and 94 million lira in 2019.[9] In 2019 local people protested against 48 villages being destroyed by expansion of the mine feeding the plant.[10] Opponents of the coal mining also claim it threatens the ancient city of Lagina.[11]İklim Değişikliği Politika ve Araştırma Derneği (Climate Change Policy and Research Association) said that the plant was given a 5 year licence despite not having rehabilitated former ash storage landfill.[12]: 79
^Çaltı, Nuray; Bozoğlu, Dr. Baran; Aldırmaz, Ahmet Turan; Atalar, Gülşah Deniz (2 June 2021). Özelleştirilmiş Termik Santraller ve Çevre Mevzuatına Uyum Süreçleri [Privatized Thermal Power Plants and Environmental Legislation Compliance Processes] (Report) (in Turkish). İklim Değişikliği Politika ve Araştırma Derneği.
