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Altamont Pass wind farm
Turbines near Livermore, California in 2009
Country	United States
Location	Altamont Pass, Alameda County, California
Coordinates	37°43′57″N 121°39′9″W / 37.73250°N 121.65250°W / 37.73250; -121.65250
Status	Operational
Commission date	1981
Wind farm
Type	Onshore
Power generation
Units operational	4930
Nameplate capacity	576 MW
Annual net output	1.1 TWh
External links
Commons	Related media on Commons
[edit on Wikidata]

The Altamont Pass wind farm is located in the Altamont Pass of the Diablo Range in Northern California. It is one of the earliest wind farms in the United States. The first wind turbines were placed on the Altamont in the early 1980s by Fayette Manufacturing Corporation, on land owned by cattle rancher Joe Jess. The wind farm is composed of 4,930 relatively small wind turbines of various types, making it at one time the largest wind farm in the world in terms of capacity.

Altamont Pass is still one of the largest concentration of wind turbines in the world, with a capacity of 576 megawatts (MW), producing about 125 MW on average and 1.1 terawatt-hours (TWh) yearly. They were installed after the 1970s energy crisis in response to favorable tax policies for investors.

In the media

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When the first windfarms appeared in 1981, on the Altamont hills alongside the Altamont Pass portion of the I-580 freeway, the appearance of the modern windmill generated media excitement and public interest. This portion of the freeway was an increasingly used corridor for growing the bedroom communities of Tracy, Lodi and Modesto serving the Bay Area of California (Oakland, San Francisco and Pleasanton). Daily commuters crowded past the otherwise barren cattle ranches for several hours each day.

By 1985, the Altamont Pass was crowded with over 26 different windfarms. The increased visibility from the nearby I-580 freeway, which had once sparked the media and community's interest, was now widely regarded as a growing eyesore. Successful windfarms at the Altamont Pass encouraged the development of further industrial wind areas in southern California. These windfarms, in the Tehachapi Pass, led to wider recognition, after windmills played a role as a prominent backdrop in several feature films of the mid- and late 1980s, including the 1985 film based on the Bret Easton Ellis novel Less than Zero, featuring Andrew McCarthy and Robert Downey, Jr.

Environmental effects

Modern wind turbines kill about 0.279 birds per GWh generated, in comparison to 0.200 birds per GWh by coal power plants without climate change effects, and 5.18 birds per GWh with. However, the small turbines used at Altamont in 2007 were dangerous to various raptors that hunt California ground squirrels in the area. In that year, 1,300 raptors were killed annually, among them 70 federally protected golden eagles. In total, 4,700 birds were killed annually.

The effects of the Altamont Pass wind farm on wildlife were exacerbated by its proximity to bird migration routes, its craggy landscape ideal for birds of prey, and its predominant outdated turbine designs (as of 2013). As of 2013 it takes 15-34 Altamont Pass turbines to produce the same amount of electricity as one modern turbine. These outdated turbines are set 60-80 feet tall, the same height as bird flight paths.

Considered largely obsolete, these numerous small turbines are as of 2009 being gradually replaced with much larger and more cost-effective units. The larger units rotate at a much lower angular frequency to the previous turbines, and, being elevated higher, are less hazardous to the local wildlife, according to a report done for the Bonneville Power Administration.

As of 2010, a settlement has been reached between the Audubon Society, Californians for Renewable Energy and NextEra Energy Resources, who operate some 5,000 turbines in the area. Nearly half of the smaller turbines will be replaced by newer, more bird-friendly models. The project was expected to be complete by 2015 and included $2.5 million for raptor habitat restoration.

Wind farms

The Altamont Pass Wind Farm is now composed of five constituent wind farms. The Golden Hills Wind Farm is the largest constituent wind farm, as well as being the only one located south of Altamont Pass.

Repowering

In 2015, NextEra – which owns some of the 100kW Kenetech/US Windpower older turbines installed during the 1980s – agreed to remove the machines and replace them with 48 new model wind turbines. A power purchase agreement has been completed to power the Googleplex office complex in nearby Mountain View, California. The process of removing old wind turbines and replacing them with newer machines is called repowering.

A portion of the wind energy center is being dismantled as of 2016. Altamont Winds Inc (AWI)'s 83MW of 100 kW Kenetech turbines are being taken down. These are older models with lattice towers. It has been proposed to replace them with 27 turbines with rated capacity of 2.1MW each (56.7MW total).

The Scott Haggerty wind farm replaced 569 100-kW turbines with 23 modern turbines in 2021.

See also

• List of power stations in California
• Wind power in California
• Wind power in the United States

References

1. "Lodi News-Sentinel – Google News Archive Search".
2. "California Wind Energy Association: Fast Facts about California Wind Energy". www.calwea.org. Archived from the original on 2012-02-03. Retrieved 2011-02-23.
3. "Altamont Pass, California – Encyclopedia of Earth". www.eoearth.org. Archived from the original on 19 May 2008. Retrieved 2008-06-02.
4. ^ Sovacool, Benjamin K. (2013-01-01). "The avian benefits of wind energy: A 2009 update". Renewable Energy. Selected papers from World Renewable Energy Congress - XI. 49: 19–24. doi:10.1016/j.renene.2012.01.074. ISSN 0960-1481.
5. Bogo, Jennifer (September 14, 2007). "How the Deadliest Wind Farm Can Save the Birds: Green Machines". Popular Mechanics. Archived from the original on June 4, 2009. Retrieved July 14, 2011.
6. "Synthesis and Comparison of Baseline Avian and Bat Use, Raptor Nesting and Mortality Information from Proposed and Existing Wind Developments" (PDF). www.bpa.gov. Archived (PDF) from the original on 13 August 2009. Retrieved 2009-09-07.
7. Andrew Dalton (December 7, 2010). Altamont Pass to Get Less-Deadly Wind Turbines Archived 2013-04-16 at the Wayback Machine sfist.
8. "Electricity Data Browser - Altamont Pass Windplant". www.eia.gov. Retrieved 2022-09-27.
9. "Electricity Data Browser - Buena Vista Energy LLC". www.eia.gov. Retrieved 2020-02-20.
10. "Electricity Data Browser - Diablo Winds LLC". www.eia.gov. Retrieved 2020-02-20.
11. "Electricity Data Browser - Golden Hills Wind". www.eia.gov. Retrieved 2020-02-20.
12. "Electricity Data Browser - Golden Hills North Wind Energy Center". www.eia.gov. Retrieved 2020-02-20.
13. "Electricity Data Browser - Vasco Winds". www.eia.gov. Retrieved 2020-02-20.
14. O'Brien, Matt (2016-08-12). "Google buys Altamont wind energy to power Googleplex". The Mercury News. Retrieved 2018-10-21.
15. "Dismantling under way at Altamont Pass". Windpower Monthly. Windpower Monthly. Retrieved 16 March 2016.
16. "Developers replace and repower California wind farm". Windpower Engineering & Development. 27 September 2021. Archived from the original on 28 September 2021.

• Wampler, Steve (March 9, 1982). "Windmills are growing along Altamont Hills". Lodi News Sentinel.

External links

Media related to Altamont Pass Wind Farm at Wikimedia Commons

• 30 photos of Altamont Pass wind farm
• Wind farms of the World

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