After a five-month construction period and three months of trials, Alpiq has started up its first wind farm in Switzerland. Le Peuchapatte is located in the municipality of Muriaux in the canton of Jura, which is also the home of its operator Eole Jura SA, a fully-owned subsidiary of Alpiq. The technical acceptance test with the turbine manufacturer was carried out on 7 January 2011, when the keys were also handed over. Within the past two months the three wind turbines have already generated 1,500,000 Kilowatt hours of energy.
Wind turbine sets production record Le Peuchapatte is situated at an altitude of approximately 1,200 meters above sea level and has a capacity of 6.9 Megawatts. The wind farm generates around 12 million Kilowatt hours of electricity per year: equivalent to the annual consumption of some 3,000 households. The conditions for the wind farm site on the Jura heights are exceptionally good, as underscored by the production record set by one of the three wind turbines on 6 January 2011. In a single day it generated 53 271 kWh: more than any other wind turbine in Switzerland to date.
The final work on the infrastructure is now under way, and the fields around the turbines will be restored to their original state by spring 2011.