LEEDCo Turns to Private Funding

Despite not winning federal government grant, a Cleveland-based non-profit group which plans to build a wind farm in Lake Erie is keen on advancing with the project.

Although Lake Erie Energy Development Corporation (LEEDCo) did not qualify for the USD 47 million grant, the Department of Energy (DOE) gave LEEDCo USD 3 million to complete engineering and other studies for the project.

Over the past two year, the group was focused on winning the federal grant thus neglecting the exploration of private financing.

Eric Ritter, a LEEDCo spokesman, said “We’ve got full funding to complete the engineering design, we’ve submitted permit applications, we’ve got commitments to sell all of our power, we have a number of banks that are interested in financing the project. These are all really strong fundamentals.”

The offshore wind farm project, Icebreaker as it is called, will comprise six Siemens SWT-3.0-113 turbines with an 87.5-meter hub height and 120-meter rotor diameter located 11 kilometers off the shore of Lake Erie near Cleveland.

LEEDCo is now working on how to reduce the project costs in order to make it more attractive to private investors.