LOS ANGELES, Oct 24 (Reuters) - A British Columbia company, Western Wind Energy Corp., said on Tuesday it wants to purchase land in California to build 1,200 megawatts of wind power on multiple sites.

Western Wind said it is looking at 30 sites in California for its wind projects.

With California's demand for electricity growing by 500 to 1,000 megawatts per year and the state requiring utilities to have 20 percent of power generated by renewable sources by 2010, Western Wind says the state is a good place to expand.

Western Wind Chief Executive Jeffrey Ciachurski said in a statement that the company has hired Richard Simon, who wrote the first formal wind resource study of California in 1977, to help it acquire land for its wind farms.

The company already has more than 500 wind turbines operating in California and will look at sites outside its current projects at Tehachapi and the San Gorgonio Pass near Palm Springs, and Altamont.

Western Wind, based in Coquitlam, British Columbia, near Vancouver, also wants to establish a position in the developing emissions trading market in California.

The "green tag" market would allow generators of renewable power such as Western Wind to earn certificates to sell to regional utilities that want to meet the state's renewable portfolio standard of 20 percent.

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