Magellan Wind, the US offshore wind developer that has the backing of Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP), is looking at developing projects in the Great Lakes.

Last year Magellan announced a joint development partnership with CIP – a major investor in offshore wind in Europe, the US and Asia – to advance an early-stage portfolio of floating offshore wind farms off the California coast and “other areas of the United States”.

One of those other areas under consideration is the freshwater Great Lakes, reveals Dan Reicher, one of two senior advisors supporting the company alongside former Siemens chief technology officer Henrik Stiesdal.

Magellan and CIP plan to use Stiesdal Offshore Technologies’ TetraSpar floating foundation technology for their projects. Magellan owns a stake in Stiesdal Offshore Technologies, Reicher says.

Little is known about any additional offshore wind development activity underway in the Great Lakes, beyond non-profit developer LEEDCo’s six-turbine Icebreaker project facing Columbus, Ohio, in Lake Erie, which would use bottom-fixed foundations. Several projects on the Canadian side failed to move forward earlier this decade.

But the region holds huge potential for offshore wind development, with more than 30 million people living across the Great Lakes basin in cities like Chicago, Toronto and Detroit, and several times that many in the surrounding states and provinces.

Significant portions of the Great Lakes have shallow enough waters for bottom-fixed turbine foundations, though concerns about the visual impact could push projects farther from shore.

While the route to market for offshore projects in the Great Lakes is unclear, Reicher suggests surging corporate demand for renewables could be key.

“As costs come down I’m pretty confident that offshore wind on both coasts is going to be part of the mix. And I do think there’s serious attention being paid to the Great Lakes; major corporations in that part of the world will be looking at that potential.”

Reicher, who is also executive director of the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance at Stanford University, made his comments on a webinar hosted by the American Council on Renewable Energy.

Emails sent to Reicher and Magellan Wind chief executive Jim Lanard requesting additional details went unanswered Wednesday.

Magellan may be small, without any offshore wind lease areas to its name. But the company has attracted some powerful backers, having received investment from the likes of CIP and Equinor, Reicher says. CEO Lanard was formerly a managing director at Deepwater Wind.

For its part, Stiesdal Offshore Technologies last year received the backing of oil giant Shell.

Stiesdal's TetraSpar floating concept is designed around standardized components and steel work, and its parts could be made in local factories and transported to quayside for assembly.