A nonprofit corporation leading efforts to establish a 20-MW offshore wind project in Lake Erie says the new wind farm could result in 600 new jobs by 2012.
But that's just a short-term scenario. Expanding the wind farm to 1,500 MW of wind energy would create or maintain 3,000 jobs in Ohio -- and increasing it to 5,000 MW would generate as many as 8,000 new jobs.
The Lake Erie Energy Development Corporation (LEEDCo) released the numbers Aug. 5 as part of an economic impact study commissioned by NorTech, a nonprofit technology-based economic development organization.
The study examined the economic effects of two scenarios for deploying wind turbines in Lake Erie. Both scenarios assume an initial offshore installation of 20 MW by 2012 and are based on the estimated costs for installation, operations and maintenance of hypothetical 5-MW turbines as well as estimated costs of specialized vessels necessary to install them.
Besides the creation of jobs, the study projected that:
-- Expenditures through 2014 for deployment and operation of the 20-MW project would total $63.4 million. Sales are estimated at $81.6 million, with $34.2 million in wages and $47.7 million in public revenues.
-- Installing 5,000 MW of offshore wind energy would generate $7.8 billion in wages and salaries, $22.6 billion in sales, and $586.5 million in public revenues by 2030.
-- Deploying 1,500 MW of wind energy would generate $2.2 billion in wages, $6.5 billion in sales, and $171.5 million in public revenue (state and local) by 2030.
LEEDCO is part of a four-year effort to explore the potential for offshore wind energy on Lake Erie. NorTech created LEEDCo late last year in partnership with the Great Lakes Energy Task Force and the Cleveland Foundation.
Source: LEEDCo.
Writer: Gene Monteith