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Windridge
The Windridge Wind Farm is a 4.5 MW wind generation facility located on 191 acres owned by the Company in Tehachapi, California. The assets include 43 Windmatic turbines, a substation, a collection system, and a PPA with SCE, which expires on December 7, 2014, to deliver the output from 4.5 MW of capacity.
The Company has a Standard Offer Power Purchase and Interconnection Agreement with SCE that will expire on December 7, 2014 to sell electricity on an "as available" basis at SCE's SRAC price.
Western Wind was exploring options to increase the generating capacity and accordingly submitted a plan to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration ("FAA") in 2008 for seven new turbine sites to replace the existing turbines. The FAA is responsible for protecting the national airspace and reviews proposed obstructions, such as communications towers, wind turbines, airport flight patterns, etc., to that airspace that exceed the stated maximum height limits to determine whether the proposed obstruction will be a hazard to existing uses of the airspace. In October 2008, the FAA issued a notice stating that the seven new proposed turbines exceeded the maximum height limit for that area and would be a hazard to existing uses so the Company's Windridge expansion plans have been temporarily suspended. The facility is currently operating below its rated capacity but management believes that the Windridge property can be repowered with new turbines that are within the FAA height restrictions or by using up to 70 of the Vestas V15 wind turbines that may be available after the Mesa Wind Farm repower.
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