The Department of Energy is willing to roll the dice on an offshore wind farm less than three miles off the coast of Atlantic City; a project the state’s top utility officials rejected two months ago.

Cape May-based Fishermen’s Energy Wednesday was awarded up to $47 million by the federal agency over four years “to deploy innovative, grid-connected systems in federal and state waters by 2017. Projects in Oregon and Virginia also received funding.

“No other project in America is more prepared to put steel in the water and this recognition acknowledges that fact,” Dan Cohen, chairman and founder of Fisherman’s Energy, said.

The company, a coalition of commercial fishermen, needs state approval before in order to secure the entire federal grant. As it stands now, the money is less than half what state officials said was need in federal aid when they shot down the plan to build five turbines off the coast of Atlantic City.

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