Wind Farm Coming To Kingman

The Arizona Department of Commerce & the City of Kingman are delighted to announce that Verde Resources Corporation, a Scottsdale-based wholly owned subsidiary of Western Wind Energy is building a 15-megawatt wind farm which will be located just south of the city on 808 acres at the Nucor Steel plant. The Steel Park Wind Project is a $20 million capital investment and will create up to 50 construction jobs. After construction, up to 35permanent jobs will be created over the next 3 years.

"Arizona's greatest wind resources are in rural areas & tribal lands, & this project represents a huge potential for jobs & investment," says Arizona Department of Commerce Director Gilbert Jimenez.

"Western Wind Energy is partnering with Mohave Community College to develop a green building & renewable energy curriculum," says MikeBoyd, company spokesman. "Western Wind will award $5,000 scholarshipsto qualifying students who are transferring to a university from this program."

Western Wind is also working with a major Arizona utility on its plans to implement a "Hydrogen Highway" on I-40 in northern Arizona. Service areas will be staged along the corridor in order to refuel the utility's hydrogen fleet. Western Wind plans to dedicate one of its wind turbines to generate hydrogen for these service stations.

"I believe Western Wind is taking all the steps necessary to make itself a good corporate citizen," says Dave French, Vice-Mayor of the City of Kingman. "The environmental engineering scholarships for students are agreat way of training a local work force. And the prospect of partnering with Nucor Steel on affordable power costs so they can restart operations at the steel plant is also good news. I wish them well."

The Steel Park Wind Project will begin the 1st phases of construction shortly. Woodson Engineering, based in Flagstaff, is responsible for submitting building permit applications & the attendant site plans for 15 one-MW wind turbines. Delivery is planned for October 2006 & Western Wind Energy anticipates commercial production by the end of 2006.

Western Wind Energy is a wind development & production company withpower sales agreements valued at over $900 million. Western Wind Energy is listed on NASDAQ with a trading symbol of "WNDEF". The company is headquartered in British Columbia, Canada, & has sites under various stages of development & production in California, Arizona & New Brunswick. For information on Business Development & Attraction in Arizona, please visit the Arizona Department of Commerce website at Az Commerce or contact Jaye O'Donnell at 602-771-1124.