http://www.ci.kimball.ne.us/city/wind_farm.htm August 1, 2002 - Two men on top of the generator (nacelle) of the 230-feet wind turbine tower help secure the rotor to the tower. The assembled blade and hub weighs 110,300 pounds and the generator weighs 92,200 pounds. The maximum blade height will be 348 feet and blade tip speed will be 145 miles per hour when operating. The towers are made of conical steel. With ideal and constant wind, each turbine could produce up to 1.5 megawatts of power. The seven turbines will cost about $15 million total. http://www.mapleridgewind.com/involved.htm http://ludb.clui.org/ex/i/CA4977/ Tehachapi Description: The Tehachapi Wind Farm, with around 5,000 wind turbines, is the second largest collection of wind generators in the world (the largest is at the Altamont pass, near Livermore and the San Francisco Bay area), but is now the largest wind power array in the world in output. The turbines are operated by a dozen private companies, and collectively produce about 800 million kilowatt-hours of electricity, enough to meet the residential needs of 350,000 people every year. With over 15,000 turbines in the state (7,000 at Altamont and 3,000 at San Gorgonio Pass, near Palm Springs), wind power in California makes up about 1% of California's electricity. Location: Five miles W of Mojave (POINT(-118.2509994506 35.0834655761)) (show on map) Address: CA Kern County Visitor Info: Public roads pass through the wind farm, as does the Pacific Crest Hiking Trail. Visible from both sides of Route 58, west of Mojave, and east of Tehachapi. Links: http://www.me3.org/issues/wind/tehqna2.html http://www.tehachapi.com/wind/ LCS: Industrial, Power Plant / Electrical Generation The east and south area of the Tehachapi Pass has one of California's larger Wind farms, generating electricity. The turbines have been in place since the early 1980s and have been upgraded through the years. The original wind turbines were much smaller than the much taller and larger new version turbines now sited for use. They are easily seen from State Route 58 and from Tehachapi-Willow Springs Road. In a recent move, Southern California Edison plans to secure 1,500 megawatts (MW) or more of power generated from new projects to be built in the Tehachapi area. The 2006 contract, which more than doubles SCE’s wind energy portfolio, envisions more than 50 square miles of wind parks in the Tehachapi region, which is triple the size of any existing U.S. wind farm.[1] Other well-known wind turbine locations in California include the Altamont Pass Wind Farm and the San Gorgonio Pass Wind Farm, near Palm Springs. http://www.eoearth.org/article/Tehachapi_Pass,_California Tehachapi Pass (35°06'50.12"N, 118°17'46.13"W, elevation 3793 ft/1156 m), a mountain pass in southern California, southeast of Bakersfield, CA, is the site of one of the world's largest wind farms. Average wind speeds approach nearly 9 meters per second (about 20 miles per hour). This places Tehachapi Pass in wind power class 6 (these classes range from class 1, the lowest, to class 7, the highest). Wind speeds are higher in April through October than in the winter months due to the extreme heating of the Mojave Desert during the summer months. The hot air over the desert rises, and the cooler, denser air above the Pacific Ocean rushes through the Tehachapi mountain pass to replace it. The predominant wind direction is from the west/northwest in the mid-spring to mid-fall and from the southeast/east during the colder months. Wind resource areas in California. Image: CA Energy Commission Enlarge Wind resource areas in California. Image: CA Energy Commission The Tehachapi wind farm consists of about 3,400 wind turbines with a capacity of 710 MW annual generation of about 1.5 terrawatt hours (TWh) of electricity. The Tehachapi wind resource area is one of three primary regions, the others being Altamont and San Gorgonio. Together these three areas account for nearly 95 percent of all commercial wind power generation in California, and approximately 11 percent of the world’s wind-generated electricity. In 2004, wind energy in California produced 4,258 million kilowatt-hours of electricity, about 1.5 percent of the state's total electricity. That's more than enough to light a city the size of San Francisco. The region is also the site of the Tehachapi Loop. Built between 1874 and 1876, it is an engineering marvel world famous for its unique solution to what was considered an unsolvable problem of building the railway through an exceptionally steep section of the mountains to the Tehachapi pass. Civil Engineer William Hood solved the problem by constructing a unique loop. A train first passes through an entry tunnel, and then does a complete counterclockwise loop, passing over the entry tunnel before continuing easterly. The loop is sized to have a length adequate to achieve the needed gain in elevation. The result is a loop 3,799 feet long, with a typical diameter of about 1,210 feet. Picture credit: http://www.pbase.com/image/61328120 Doug Kessler