The Lake Erie Energy Development Corporation, or LEEDCo, is one of seven offshore energy proposals in the U.S. to receive $4 million dollars each toward planning and engineering, and a chance to compete for future funding.

LEEDCo’s plan is to install 9 wind turbines seven miles offshore from Cleveland.  President Lorry Wagner says the federal money is not just a grant, it’s a cooperative agreement.  That means the Department of Energy sits on the management team and Wagner says "every step of the way they will be involved in engineering and financial decisions so that we really have another partner on the team that is obviously pretty talented.”

At the end of next year, the Department of Energy will evaluate all of the proposed offshore projects, including the Lake Erie plan, and award three of them additional funding to actually build the turbines.

If LEEDCo makes it to the final funding phase, construction of wind turbines on Lake Erie could begin in 2015.