The wind energy industry claims to provide power for thousands of homes with each new windmill development, but in fact, wind turbines can only generate kilowatt hours of electricty when the winds are blowing at the right speeds. Wind is an intermittent resource, and as such, is unreliable as a power source.

The small amount of power they do generate typically does not match the time of need profile.  To put this in context, the 4,000+ windmills in the San Gorgonio Pass (approx. 565 megawatts of installed capacity) generate only approximately 100 megawatts per year. Southern California Edison uses approximately 13,000 megawatts of power in their service area per year.

The document linked to this page lists the monthly production figures for the San Gorgonio Pass wind energy facility during the period from 1998 to 2006. The monthly production figures are broken down by Time of Use (TOU). In California, time-of-use rates are usually divided into three or four time blocks per twenty-four hour period (on-peak, mid-peak, off-peak and sometimes super off-peak) and by seasons of the year (summer and winter).

TOU = 1 On peak (only occurs during summer months Jun to Sep)
TOU = 2 Mid peak
TOU = 3 Off peak
TOU = 4 Super Off peak (only occurs during winter months Oct to May)

Below is a summary of the 1998 to 2006 average yearly windmill power production in the San Gorgonio Pass, based on 565 megawatts of installed capacity located within the Southern California Edison service area:

Year     kWh production      MW        % of installed capacity
===     =========        ===       ================
1998    797709528           91.06            16%       
1999    883429026          100.84            17.8%
2000    952507247          108.73            19.24%
2001    858533582           98                 17%
2002    965777430          110.248          19.5%
2003    793296843           90.55             16%
2004    779315629           88.96             15.7%
2005    786556823           89.789           15.89%
2006    732561714           83.62             14% 

It is important to note that the percent capacity figures above represent an average percentage of installed capacity throughout the year.

Windaction.org wishes to thank Alexandra Weit for her efforts in obtaining this information from Southern California Edison and in the preparation of these average capacity figures.