Ohio approves environmental permit for 20.7 MW Icebreaker offshore wind project in Lake Erie with conditions

The Ohio Power Siting Board (OPSB) has approved the environmental permit for the planned 20.7 MW Icebreaker offshore wind project in Lake Erie proposed by the Lake Erie Energy Development Corporation (LEEDCo) with conditions. 

The project has been endorsed by environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, the Environmental Defense Fund, and the Ohio Environmental Council and also earned approvals from regulatory agencies including the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The project had been thoroughly reviewed for many years under the strictest of environmental regulations and reviews by 13 local, state, and federal agencies that include the U.S. Department of Energy. 

The Board approval includes 33 conditions, one of them is that the turbines can not turn at night between March 1 and November 1, to limit risk to birds and bats.

LEEDCo is a non-profit public-private partnership whose members include the City of Cleveland, the Port of Cleveland, the Cleveland Foundation and Cuyahoga, Lake, Ashtabula, and Lorain counties in Ohio and Erie County. 

The project will consist of six MHI Vestas turbines of 3.45 MW and the construction of a 12-mile submerged transmission line that connects the wind farm to an onshore substation of Cleveland Public Power. Fred. Olsen Renewables USA will partner LEEDCo in the project.