Wind power technology is now a reliable electricity production system. It presents an economically attractive solution for the continuously increasing energy demand of the Marmara region located in Turkey. However, the stochastic behavior of wind speed in the Marmara region can lead to significant disharmony between wind energy production and electricity demand. Therefore, to overcome wind's variable nature, a more reliable solution would be to integrate hydropower with wind energy. In this study, a methodology to estimate an optimal wind-hydro solution is developed and it is subsequently applied to six typical different site cases in the Marmara region in order to define the most beneficial configuration of the wind-hydro system. All numerical calculations are based on the long-term wind speed measurements, electrical load demand and operational characteristics of the system components. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.