Western Wind Energy Awarded $78334713 Tax Free Cash Grant

The U.S. Treasury Department has notified Western Wind that the payment will be made within seven days of July 9, 2012. The amount of the award is $13,221,994 below the amount originally requested by Western Wind, apparently due to changes in the administration of the program by the Treasury Department which has reduced the suggested guidance on the amount of any developer fee which can be included in the 30% cash grant amount.

Western Wind’s management believes that, notwithstanding the revised Treasury position on developer fees, the developer fee included in the cash grant application for the Windstar project was proper and is supported by appropriate analyses by our external counsel and tax advisors. Accordingly, Western Wind intends to engage in discussions with the Treasury Department regarding the appropriate amount of the developer fee for the project and to request that the balance of original amount of cash grant requested be reinstated and paid.

Western Wind Energy is a vertically integrated renewable energy production company that owns wind and solar generation facilities with 165MW of rated capacity in production, in the States of California and Arizona. Western Wind further owns substantial development assets for both solar and wind energy in the U.S. and Canada. The Company is headquartered in Vancouver, BC and has branch offices in Scottsdale, Arizona and Tehachapi, California. Western Wind trades on the Toronto Venture Exchange under the symbol "WND", and in the United States on the OTCQX under the symbol "WNDEF".

The Company owns and operates three wind energy generation facilities in California, and one fully integrated combined wind and solar energy generation facility in Arizona. The three operating wind generation facilities in California are comprised of the 120MW Windstar, 4.5MW Windridge facilities in Tehachapi, and the 30MW Mesa wind generation facility near Palm Springs. The facility in Arizona is the Company’s 10.5MW Kingman integrated solar and wind facility. The Company is further developing wind and solar energy projects in California, Arizona, and Puerto Rico.