Dome

Coachella Valley with rows of windmills; Wind turbine generators are a type of windmill that produces electricity by harnessing the wind; they require average wind speeds of at least 21 km/h (13 mph). The San Gorgonio Pass Wind Farm is a wind farm located on the eastern slope of the San Gorgonio Pass in Riverside County. Developed beginning in the 1980s, it is one of three major wind farms in California. The gateway into the Coachella Valley, the San Gorgonio Pass is one of the windiest places in southern California. The majority of the San Gorgonio Pass Wind Farm viewed from atop the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway in the San Jacinto Mountains to the south. The farm continues over the hills to the north along California State Route 62. Wind energy is a commercially available renewable energy source, with state-of-the-art wind plants producing electricity at about $0.05 per kWh. However, even at that production cost, wind-generated electricity is not yet fully cost-competitive with coal- or natural-gas-produced electricity for the bulk electricity market. The turbines in the wind plants are privately owned, with the electricity sold to the local utilities. About 1% of the electricity used in California is currently generated from wind. Source: Wikipedia; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page (accessed 8/31/2015)