A London based bank is lending  $20 million (£12m) to help build Turkey’s largest geothermal power plant.

The Efeler facility is being built by a subsidiary of Güriş Holding, a Turkish renewable energy company.

The plant’s five units – three of them already operational – are situated near the western town of Germencik.

When completed later this year, the plant will have a total capacity of 170MW, making it one of the 10 largest geothermal plants in the world, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) claims.

It added the amount of installed geothermal capacity in Turkey will rise by around 30%.

Nandita Parshad, Director for Power and Energy at EBRD, said: “At the EBRD we are strong supporters of geothermal sources of energy as a way forward for Turkey’s energy mix.

If the country realised all of its potential of 4GW geothermal, it would be equal to adding a further 12-15GW of wind or solar power.”

According to the bank only 427MW of geothermal power has been developed to date.