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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.
We have represented a nuclear power plant in New Hampshire on multiple property tax valuation matters, as well as on obtaining pollution control exemptions.
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.
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.
Representing New Leaf Energy, Inc. (formerly Borrego Solar Systems, Inc.) in the preparation of petition to the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities for approval of battery storage systems, including a facility located in western Massachusetts.
Pierce Atwood represented Great Bay Renewables, LLC, in connection with a $6.1 million PJM interconnection deposit facility to support Red Stone Renewables, a privately-owned developer of utility scale renewables projects.
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.
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.
Lead real estate and permitting counsel to NYSE-listed energy company on purchase of all operating permits and development rights for 300 MW class to-be-constructed combined cycle dual fuel project, requiring delivery of new gas laterals and redeployment of excess water reservoir capacities for cooling.