CITIZEN POWER ALLIANCE

General Electric Co. announced Monday that it plans to harness the power of winds blowing across Lake Erie by developing the world’s first freshwater wind farm several miles offshore from downtown Cleveland.

GE and the nonprofit Lake Erie Energy Development Corp., or LEEDCo, announced a partnership to develop five wind turbines about 6 miles north of Cleveland Browns stadium. The turbines, which would stand about 200 feet tall, would aim to generate about 20 megawatts of power by 2012 and 1,000 megawatts by 2020.

The announcement came weeks after the Obama administration cleared the way for America’s first offshore wind farm in Massachusetts. In late April, U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar approved a $2 billion Cape Wind project off the shores of Cape Cod after more than eight years of lawsuits and government reviews.

America has the world’s largest onshore wind industry but lags behind other countries in offshore electric generation because of high upfront costs, heavy regulation, local opposition and technological challenges.

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