I came across these along Redrock-Randsburg Road (I think) more than 20 years ago, I can’t find anything about them online. Do we have any wind turbine experts/historians in the house?
I have asked the expert/explorer/historian in the ‘You know you’re from the A.V. when…’ Facebook group if he has any insight. The page is for the Antelope Valley, but he gets around.
I’m not familiar with the area, but the Tehachapi Pass is now home to the Mojave Windfarm.
The turbines pictured are an old idea designed to get the most out of low-speed wind close to the ground. I never heard of a true commercial development like that, so I’m guessing a research project, or at best a speculative blue-sky prototype development implemented to extract money from speculative blue-sky investors.
They really look rickety and I’d have guessed they were stationary, non-rotating vanes or louvers from the photo.