The New York Power Authority, the largest state-owned power supplier in the U.S., is to explore the development of wind farms in Lake Erie and Lake Ontario.

Richard Kessel, president of the Authority, shared the public-private initiative for the potential development of wind power projects. The goal is to develop within the next five years an offshore wind project in the Great Lakes that will produce a minimum of 120 megawatts of clean, renewable energy.

Kessel estimated the project would cost $700 million to $1 billion.

He said the state power authority released a request for expressions of interest to initiate efforts to develop offshore wind projects in the Great Lakes.

The Authority has asked potential developers to provide environmental, technical, financial and other information to gauge whether it should move forward with the idea of electricity-producing windmills off the shoreline.

New York is the latest Great Lakes state to look offshore as it tries to ramp up the amount of electricity generated from renewable resources. Wisconsin, Ohio and Michigan are looking at offshore potential, while Trillium Power Wind Corp. is developing a wind farm in Lake Ontario off the Canadian coast.

Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm formed a panel early this year to look at offshore wind development in the Great Lakes, including mapping areas best suited for development. A study by the Land Policy Institute at Michigan State University last year concluded the state's portion of the Great Lakes has the capacity to produce 320,000 megawatts of electricity from wind.

New York’s installed wind capacity totals 1,274 megawatts, up from 424 megawatts last March.

Several similar projects are being considered in Canada, on the northern side of Lake Erie, as well as off the Toronto shoreline of Lake Ontario, but nothing has been built so far, said Terry Yonker, chairman of the Great Lakes Wind Collaborative Steering Committee, a bi-national group pursuing wind development in the United States and Canada, according to AP.