California Wind Initiatives

Following up on comments I left at Monkeysign, I stumbled across a couple pieces about the role of wind farms in California power generation. First, LAMWD is adding a wind farm at Pine Tree to its generation portfolio. The facility, part of the DWP's renewable energy initiative to produce 20% of the utility's power from renewables by 2017, recently received final approval from the city council and the DWP Board of Commissioners. The wind farm, north of Mojave, will have a 120MW capacity and is expected to start generating power in the first quarter of 2006. The city has also earmarked $1.7 billion to retrofitting combined-cycle technology to aging power plants already under LAMWD control.

Second, PG&E has submitted a plan for purchasing electricity from wind farms, all in northern California. With these purchases, PG&E hopes to generate 30% of its electricity from renewable sources.

Update 5/2: FuturePundit has a number of links and additional commentary on the LADWP moves.