This week, LEEDCo secured a federal grant for design work on the company's planned offshore "wind farm" (see right, sorta), which will plant six turbines in Lake Erie to harvest the region's fine winds and transform them into energy.

The $2.8 million shot is a windfall for the market-based project, which has seen its ups and downs since first being publicly announced. 

Here's Crain's, rolling the widespread credits:

Laboratory testing will be conducted by a Case Western Reserve University team led by David Zeng, chair of the department of civil engineering. The engineering work will be led by Offshore Design Engineering, a United Kingdom company that has designed and installed several European offshore wind turbines.

Two organizations will help LEEDCo design the turbines to withstand Lake Erie ice: Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory of Hanover, N.H., and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Geological analysis work will be done by Sound and Sea Technology of Lynnwood, Wash.