The Board of Commissioners for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP, Los Angeles, CA) approved the final Environmental Impact Report (EIR) to move forward with a wind power project that will provide up to 120 MW of wind power for the City of Los Angeles. The Pine Tree Wind project will be the largest municipally owned wind energy system built in the Western United States since passage of the state's Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard (RPS).
The Pine Tree Wind project, would provide enough energy to power approximately 56,000 homes per year. Located in the southern Sierra Nevada Mountains, which is north of Mojave, CA, the project will be built on approximately 8,000 acres on privately owned property, and will consist of 80 1.5 MW wind turbine generators as well as a 10-mile transmission line and electrical substation.
Construction of the project is slated to begin in the summer of 2005 and will take about 10 months to complete. The LADWP expects to seek approval of the construction contract from the board and city council, as well as take steps to acquire the necessary permits, in the next few months. The project would displace LADWP's annual gas costs by about $15 million per year.
