The Çırpılar power plant is a proposed coal-fired power plant to be located in the Çanakkale province, near Çırpılar, Turkey. It would be fuelled by a new open-pit lignite (brown coal) mine, which would cover an area of 845 hectares. The plant would consume 3.5 million tonnes of lignite per year, and produce 200MW of thermal energy. Storage for 465,000 tonnes of coal would be developed, covering an area of around 90 football pitches (36.5 hectares) on the edge of the pristine Mount Ida.

The Çırpılar coal power plant project is one of 15 new coal projects planned in the Çanakkale region of Turkey. It has been in pre-permit development stage since May 2015 when the project sponsor, Taşzemin İnşaat (a subsidiary of Taşyapı Holding), submitted its Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).

The area where the project is planned is qualified as agricultural land, meaning a decision by the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock on change of use is necessary. This decision can only be issued once the EIA is approved by the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization, which has not yet occured as of September 2017.

However, the project has been discussed twice, most recently in December 2016, by the Soil Protection Council of Çanakkale and considered inappropriate, because ponds established by public funds for irrigation of arable land have been designated as the source of cooling water for the coal plant. 

However the Soil Protection Council of changed its mind by July 2017, releasing a new decision stating that the project was not inappropriate, although no changes had been made to the project plans. The project sponsor has added this decision to the current EIA report as an annex, although the final decision on the suitability of the area for non-agricultural land use still lies in the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock. The impression given in the current EIA report that the Soil Protection Council's approval justifies their project plans is misleading.

After the announcement in January 2017 of the project’s evaluation and assessment meeting, a coalition of local communities, environmental associations, national NGOs and Turkish citizens mobilised to object to the project. In a very short time 65 village leaders in the region, among 75 in total, submitted letters of objection and more than 50,000 individuals signed a petition, initiated by TEMA foundation, to cancel the project. Moreover, a mass social media campaign started and became so popular that the issue found its way to national media outlets despite the current busy political agenda in Turkey. The meeting was delayed and rescheduled for 13 September 2017.