tl;dr: Chevron owns the turbines. They originally signed an agreement with PacifiCorp to buy the power generated. When the agreement was up Chevron decided not to renew it and instead pursue registering as a generator to sell the power directly to buyers on the Western Interconnect.

As a result they have nowhere to send the power right now for the same reason you can't install a 50MWh generator on your property, toss some wires up, and start pumping electricity into the grid - even if you wanted to do it for free.

This is a great example of garbage journalism. The story reports "the facts" but completely fails to put anything in context. The story completely misses this point and acts like the government is at fault for approving the permit to install the turbines and that the nay-sayers and NIMBYs were correct because it turns out wind turbines are just a boondoggle after all.

The actual story is Chevron made incompetent business decisions by failing to sign up as a generator earlier and failing to temporarily renew their PacifiCorp power purchase agreement, thus forcing them to idle an expensive asset while they fix their mistake.