## 5 Discussion and Conclusions
It is calculated as 13,559.51 MW with a 7 m/s threshold value and 6830.69 MW with an 8 m/s threshold value. The wind speed threshold value was taken as 6.8 m/s in the wind energy potential atlas of Turkey (REPA), and the total wind energy potential at a height of 50 m for the Balikesir Province was determined to be 13,827.36 MW. In this study, the wind energy potential was calculated as 15,928.81 MW with a 6.8 m/s wind speed threshold. There are five different wind speed ranges in REPA. The wind energy potential for a given area iscalculated by multiplying the total area value by five and is a general assumption. Although the total area value obtained in this study was lower than that in REPA, the calculated total wind power potential value was higher. This is because a realistic approach was used in this study to calculate the wind energy potential. The reason for the lower area values in this study is that areas were excluded from the study if they were legally prohibited or unsuitable areas. Another reason why the wind potential values were higher than those in REPA is that the height used in this study was greater than that used in REPA. The total area and wind potential values obtained in this study and REPA are represented in Table 8.  
When the wind power potentials of the districts are examined according to the 6 m/s wind speed threshold value, the district with the highest potential is Balya. Bandirma, Havran, and Edremit follow Balya. If the threshold value is taken as 7 m/s, this order is Bandirma, Balya, Erdek, and Havran. When the threshold value is taken as 8 m/s, this order changes to Bandirma, Balya, Erdek, and Burhaniye. This change in the rankings is due to the wind speed distribution in the districts. When the wind power potential values in the districts are examined, it is obvious that Bandirma and Balya are much more efficient than the other districts. The total installed power amount was 1375.05 MW as of January 2022. This value constitutes only 8.6% of the 15,928.81 MW wind energy potential value calculated as a result of this study. This shows that the Bahkesir Province is still quite suitable for wind energy investments. This study is expected to contribute to the evaluations of investors and decision makers working in the field of renewable energy. The limitation of the method is that the wind energy potential value obtained within a certain area cannot be visualized. In order to visualize the results obtained, the energy potential of each cell must be calculated. The amount of error will increase when Equation (2), which calculates the number of wind turbines that can be installed in a certain area, is used for each cell in high-spatial-resolution studies. For example, the spatial resolution of this study is 200 m and the size of each cell is 200 \(\times\) 200 m. According to the Regulation on the Technical Evaluation of Wind Source Based Electricity Generation Applications mentioned in Section 3, the distance between two turbines has to be at least 840 m, which is seven times the rotor diameter along the route, and 360 m, which is three times the rotor diameter for the second row perpendicular to the route. In this case, it is impossible to install more than one turbine in each cell. However, using Equation (2), the number of turbines that can be installed in each cell is calculated as 2.26. For this reason, in this study, the wind energy potential is calculated for each wind speed range by taking into account the total number of cells in the specified ranges, and these results cannot be visualized. On the other hand, in order to compare the obtained results with REPA, the same wind speed ranges were created with REPA and comparisons were made. In addition, studies will continue to calculate the wind energy potential that can be produced in each cell to visualize the results produced. The proposed methodology can be applied in all areas that consist of cells having an individual wind speed value.