Strauss Wind Turbine Blades Truck Slowly Through Lompoc

The ginormous blades to be attached to 29 wind turbines being built southwest of Lompoc began to arrive last Friday, after permit delays held up transport in August. The long-gestating project, which started life in 2001 as the Lompoc Wind Project, could deliver as much as 98.8 megawatts of energy from the winds that constantly blow off the ocean, or electricity for up to 44,000 homes.

Renamed and revived as the Strauss Wind Energy Project in 2016 by energy developer BayWa r.e. Wind LLC, the 267-foot-tall turbines will sit atop a ridge at the western end of San Miguelito Road, overlooking Vandenberg Space Force Base to the north. Traffic delays in town and along the highways from moving the 200-foot-long blades from the Port of Stockton are expected to continue through December.

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