Our interdisciplinary Renewable Energy Team brings together expertise in all aspects of renewable energy project development to assist developers, power producers, and investors throughout the United States and internationally. Whether the renewable source is wind, solar, hydro, tidal, biomass, or biogas, our lawyers have experience in the core areas that make or break a renewable energy project:

Impacting Policies & Regulations

We partner with our clients to shape policies and regulations that support the advancement of renewable energy. For example, we represent a large national trade association, which is active on policy formation surrounding alternative fuels and biofuels laws and regulations. We also represent the National Energy Storage Association as well as a number of storage companies on a variety of federal and state issues that affect their businesses.

Environmental Permitting & Licensing

Successful completion of a project often requires understanding the environmental laws and regulations and the political influences that affect how a project proceeds through the permitting and siting process. In some cases, we work with clients to amend the applicable law or local ordinances so their projects may proceed. We also assist clients with obtaining local, state, and federal permits, permitting compliance, license renewals and modifications, and the acquisition, creation, and sale of greenhouse gas allowances/carbon credits. When a project's useful life comes to an end, we also assist with license surrender and decommissioning.

For example, we have experience helping owners of hydropower projects address fish passage and endangered species issues, achieve desired results in complex stakeholder negotiations as part of FERC licensing, and obtain state water quality certifications. We have also assisted in permitting all aspects of biomass electrical generation, biomass-fired co-generation at industrial facilities, and landfill gas-to-energy facilities. Learn More>

Regulatory Compliance

Our energy attorneys are experienced practicing before federal agencies and grid operators including:

  • Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)
  • Independent System Operators and Regional Transmission Operators (NYISO, ISO-NE, PJM, MISO, CAISO, ERCOT)
  • U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)
  • U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
  • U.S. Patent & Trademark Office

We also have extensive experience in numerous states and regulatory agencies on issues affecting renewable energy facilities.

Innovative Project Finance

Our team coordinates with developers, investors, and lenders to design financing strategies that maximize tax incentives and renewable energy credits. We also advise on a wide array of corporate and commercial structures, and we work with our clients to identify and analyze project risks up-front, prepare and review letters of intent, term sheets, and other documentation, and ensure compliance with federal and state regulatory requirements. Additionally, we have helped clients obtain key U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) loans, state grants, and incentives for renewable energy projects.

Negotiating Agreements

From small-scale wind development projects to large biogas development projects around the globe, we help our clients to negotiate power purchase and interconnection agreements.

Learn more about our work in the Energy, Utilities, and Renewables Industry.

Representative Experience

Represented a community-based wind farm in obtaining state regulatory approval for a long-term electricity contract.

Community-Based Wind Farm State Regulatory Approval for Long-Term Electricity Contract

Represented investor in all aspects of converting a defunct paper mill into a biomass facility, including development, financing, power sale, fuel purchase, and renewable energy credits.

Converting Defunct Paper Mill into Biomass Facility

We are advising Cornell University, a private New York educational institution, on a number of solar PV and geothermal power projects it is installing in New York, as well as on general energy and policy matters affecting its energy sustainability program. Cornell is the largest energy user in New York State.  Cornell is also a founding member of the Coalition of Renewable Energy Users and Developers (CORE), an ad hoc group of New York renewable energy users and developers.

Cornell University Solar PV & Geothermal Power Projects

Assisting Mountain Gardens, LLC, a solar PV developer, in connection with the development of two 2 MW (each) brownfield community distributed solar projects located in Newburgh, New York.

Development of Brownfield Community Distributed Solar Projects

We represent and advise landfill owners in the development of gas-to-energy sites where methane is extracted from the landfill and used to generate electricity.

Development of Gas-to-Energy Sites

We are assisting Ørsted (formerly DONG Energy), a Danish energy company and one of the world's leading developers of off-shore wind generation facilities, in connection with the development of off-shore wind generation and related facilities southwest of Martha’s Vineyard.

Development of Offshore Wind Farm

Working with our colleagues Mercados-AF we submitted two new laws to the Jamaican government. The consortium, Mercados-AF, was awarded two World Bank contracts to develop and implement new electricity and gas sector policies. We partnered with them to write two new energy acts. We wrote a framework for a new Electricity Act that will foster competition for new power plants on the island. We also developed the framework for a new Natural Gas Act that will govern the import, storage, sale, transmission, and distribution of natural gas – whether in the form of LNG, compressed natural gas, or locally discovered gas. The Ministry of Science, Technology, Energy and Mining of Jamaica is very pleased with the results of both projects.

Drafting New Energy Laws for Jamaica

We advised the Electricity and Cogeneration Regulatory Authority of Saudi Arabia (ECRA) on a variety of legal, regulatory and related issues arising from the decision of the King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy (K.A.CARE) to introduce 54 GW of renewable energy and 18 GW of atomic energy into Saudi Arabia by 2032, in order to reduce the use of oil for power generation, including cogenerated desalination and water storage projects. We led an international team of consultants (A.S. Azzouni Consultants, Inc.; The Brattle Group; ICF International, NTE Solutions, LLC) on this project, with respect to a variety of legal, regulatory, and market issues including an international Comparison of Markets Study, assessment of the K.A.CARE targets, interconnection, transfer pricing and related grid and market operational issues; legal review and analysis of proposed amendments to the Electricity Law; nuclear, and health and safety licensing issues; and institutional organization, structure, and authority of the regulator.

ECRA of Saudi Arabia Renewable Energy Projects

We represent Fox Islands Wind LLC, the developer and operator of an innovative island community wind project, in all aspects of its business, including environmental permitting, real estate, litigation, corporate, and compliance matters.

Fox Islands Wind General Representation

Represented Fox Islands Wind, LLC in the development of an innovative initiative supported by the island's consumer-owned electric cooperative, nonprofit institutions, and private investors, which included the receipt of federal production tax credits.

Fox Islands Wind Innovative Initiative

Helped devise and negotiate innovative project development loan and equity option agreements between a private equity fund and a renewable project developer to secure, fund and ultimately develop renewable projects.

Innovative Project Development Loan and Equity Option Agreements for Renewable Projects

On behalf of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), we drafted a “Green Economy Law” for the Ministry of Economy and Budget Planning in Kazakhstan, which involved an assessment of Kazakhstan’s existing laws in a variety of sectors (including the Environmental Code, the Water Code, the Electricity Law, the Renewable Energy Law, the Tax Code and the Administrative Offences Code), as compared to international best practices for “green principles.” Pierce Atwood and its local lawyers in Astana and Almaty participated in meetings with stakeholders, and then proceeded to develop amendments to 22 laws and their related sub-acts. The final Green Economy Law will introduce green economy principles into Kazakhstan’s legislative framework, based on models taken from countries that are leaders in “green economy” best practices in environmental management, including water usage, waste disposal and management, air emissions, and energy efficiency.

Kazakhstan Transition to a Green Economy

Pierce Atwood helped guide NTE Carolinas, an affiliate of NTE Energy, in its $605 million financing deal for construction and operation of Kings Mountain Energy Center, a 475 MW natural gas-fired electricity plant in City of Kings Mountain, North Carolina.

NTE Energy Financing for North Carolina Project

Represent NTE Energy in connection to its hybrid renewable biomass power generation projects. We have assisted with all aspects of development, financing and off-take agreement negotiations for projects in Florida, Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Virginia, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, Ohio, Indiana and Washington.

NTE Energy Hybrid Renewable Biomass Power Generation Projects

We serve as general counsel to Ocean Renewable Power Company, LLC, a developer of tidal energy technology and projects. Our work includes successful applications for FERC and state environmental authorizations for product trials in Western Passage off the Maine coast, a program that is now implemented in Alaska and Canada.

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Ocean Renewable Power Company General Counsel

We represented Xpress Natural Gas (XNG) in expanding access to compressed natural gas throughout the State of Maine and elsewhere in New England. Pierce Atwood assisted XNG in obtaining all necessary regulatory approvals and environmental permits for compressed natural gas production facilities in Baileyville and Eliot, Maine. These facilities receive natural gas from major pipelines, condition and compress it, and then dispense it into tank trailers made of composite materials. The trailers are then trucked to customer locations throughout Maine and elsehwhere, where the CNG is used primarily as boiler fuel. These were the first facilities of their kind in New England, and allow consumers who are not presently served by a gas utility to take advantage of this abundant, clean burning, economic and domestically produced energy resource. Our attorneys successfully led XNG through the process of obtaining approvals from the Public Utilities Commission. We drafted and obtained a town zoning ordinance amendment and other local approvals, and successfully navigated permit or exemption issues before the Department of Environmental Protection, the Maine Fuel Board, and the State Fire Marshal. We were also successful in determining that the facility was not subject to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission jurisdiction.

Permitting for CNG Facilities

We are advising the Coalition of Renewable Energy Users and Developers (CORE) before the New York Department of Public Service, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and other State agencies and offices on several key issues and policy matters that affect the use, development and financing of renewable energy and sustainability projects in New York.

Policy Matters Concerning Renewable Energy & Sustainability Projects in New York

We successfully represented Cornell University before the New York Supreme Court, Fourth Department, in a dispute with the Town of Seneca, New York over the Town's efforts to impose a property tax assessment on Cornell based on the installation of a third-party owned solar PV system on Cornell’s tax-exempt property to provide power to the university under a power purchase agreement (PPA). In a precedent-setting decision, the court found that the third-party owned facility was not assessable as an “improvement” to the land and, if the facility were a permanent attachment to the university land and therefore real property, it would be exempt from taxes pursuant to Cornell University’s education exemption. The decision is the first time a New York court has addressed the question of whether solar and wind facilities are assessable as real property.  The decision has significant implications for solar and wind development in New York.

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Precedent-Setting Decision Overturning Solar Tax Assessment

Represent developer, owner and operator of renewable gas facilities in all aspects of negotiating and documenting the siting, supply, off-take and financing of their renewable energy projects, which produce biogas, pipeline-grade methane and carbon sequestration credits from livestock and food industry waste streams by utilizing an advanced anaerobic digestion technology.

Renewable Gas Facilities Development of Renewable Energy Projects

Represented an owner/developer in conjunction with all aspects of a major commercial facility roof top PV installation in California, which at the time was the largest project of its type there. This work included negotiation of Cal ISO grid integration protocols, negotiation with the local utility with which the project interconnects, working with the California PUC on permits and tax credits, and advice regarding federal tax credits, together with associated commercial and financial advice.

Roof Top PV Installation at Major Commercial Facility

Representing Great Bay Renewables in connection with royalty investments being made in both renewable energy projects and renewable energy developers.

Royalty Investments in Renewable Energy Projects

Representation of Great Bay Renewables, Inc. in connection with its acquisition by Altius Renewable Royalties Corp., a subsidiary of Canadian company Altius Minerals Corporation.

Sale of Great Bay Renewables to Canadian Company

Representation of Southbridge Business Center in connection with 15-year oversight of 3.2 MW combined cycle electric/ steam/hot water/chilled water system for plant landlord and owners of serviced hotel and industrial park. Managed successful workout when plant operator failed.

Southbridge Business Center in Oversight Combined Cycle System

Negotiated electricity, capacity, and REC contracts on behalf of state agency.

State Agency Negotiation of Electricity, Capacity, and REC Contracts