Tehachapi

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Tehachapi is a city in Kern County, California in a valley within the Tehachapi Mountains which separate the San Joaquin Valley from the Mojave Desert. Tehachapi is unusually windy. Two of the largest wind farms in the United States are located here: the Alta Wind Energy Center, which as of 2013 was the largest wind farm in the United States, and the Tehachapi Pass Wind Farm, which in 2013 was the fifth largest wind farm. Since the California Central Valley is an immense basin surrounded by mountains, the few low passes through the mountains serve as conduits for air going in and out. Tehachapi Pass, just east of town, is the lowest — and hence windiest — pass in the valley's surrounding mountains.