The Soma Urban Heating System project, which GTE advises on emission reduction certification, has become the first in Turkey and one of the few projects in the world to receive the Gold Standard emission reduction certificate among district heating projects. The project was initiated by EÜAŞ and Soma Municipality in 2011, then Manisa Metropolitan Municipality and Soma Thermal Santral Elektrik Üretim A.Ş., which took over the power plant after privatization. was continued by Within the scope of the project, the heat obtained from the thermal power plant was used in urban heating, contributing to the improvement of the air quality in the region as well as reducing greenhouse gasses.
The system, which was used in 954 residential-equivalent (KE) buildings between January 2014 and May 2015, reduced approximately 60 thousand tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in its first year. Within the scope of the project, approximately 8 thousand subscribers were reached in 2018 and it is aimed to reach 22.000 KE buildings in total with new investments. It is foreseen that the annual greenhouse gas reduction to be achieved when the project reaches full capacity will be over 1 million tons.