Pierce Atwood represented Great Bay Renewables in connection with its acquisition of an existing royalty agreement on a portion of an operating wind project from Apex Clean Energy for $18 million. The project, which achieved commercial operations in September 2022, is an approximately 1 GW wind project located in Hansford County, Texas owned and operated by a top-tier renewables owner-operator.

Advise major Northeast provider of fuel oil and propane in connection with trade association activities, including data exchanges.

Pierce Atwood represents project developer Plus Power in connection with the financing, land use, environmental mitigation and siting of a 150 MW / 300 MWh battery storage facility in Carver, Massachusetts. Cranberry Point Energy Storage is the largest battery storage project under construction in Massachusetts.

We represent the project developer before the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities and the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act Office (MEPA) for approval to construct and operate a 250 MW lithium-ion battery facility and a 345 kV transmission line.

Pierce Atwood serves as lead transactional and environmental counsel for a leading U.S. operator and developer of stand-alone, utility-scale battery energy storage systems, in connection with a proposed 700±-MW battery energy storage system in Everett, Massachusetts. When completed, the proposed storage facility will be one of the largest in Massachusetts and will occupy a critical, urban location given its proximity to the Mystic substation. Pierce Atwood also leads aspects of the complex, state environmental permitting efforts, including, but not limited to, permitting under the Massachusetts Public Waterfront Act, known as Chapter 91, and the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act.

Pierce Atwood acted as real estate and environmental permitting counsel for Calpine Corporation in its $530 million acquisition of the 809 MW Fore River Generating Station in North Weymouth, Massachusetts from Exelon Corporation in 2014. Pierce Atwood attorneys from the Real Estate, Energy, Environmental and State and Local Tax practice groups worked seamlessly to analyze and resolve the many complex land use, tax, and environmental issues. The initial bid preparation through purchase agreement negotiation was accomplished in 15 weeks. Our work included analysis and management of complex tidelands, former coal ash disposal, dual fuel delivery requirement, and management of active MassHighway bridge relocation through the center of project site.

Pierce Atwood represented Great Bay Renewables in the provision of capital to support interconnection deposits for multiple renewable energy developers for projects in the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) 2022 interconnection cycle.

With our partners from Central and Eastern Europe, our Energy attorneys are leading a legal review of sector policies addressing climate change and promoting the transition to low carbon economies.

We successfully defended Central Maine Power Company’s standards for planning local transmission systems before the Maine Public Utilities Commission (PUC). In a year-long investigation into the appropriate standards for Maine’s electric utilities to use in planning their local transmission systems, we defended the standards that CMP has historically followed. The PUC Staff rejected most of CMP’s planning standards as unreasonable, but the Commission largely rejected the Staff’s view and affirmed that CMP’s planning standards reflect good utility practice, are reasonable and will help ensure that CMP’s customers have a safe and reliable transmission system. CMP is pleased with this outcome as it vindicates the Company’s position and will hopefully bring certainty to the planning of future transmission projects in Maine.

We negotiated with a utility to ensure that our client’s compressed air technology could operate on the system.

Pierce Atwood represented Consolidated Communications Holdings, Inc. in obtaining approval from the Maine Public Utilities Commission of Consolidated’s acquisition of FairPoint Communications, Inc.  The all-stock transaction was valued at approximately $1.3 billion including debt and based on present equity value. 

The United States Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit vacated FERC's decision to withhold over-collections payments from our clients. Agreeing with seven firm clients, the court found that FERC's directive that PJM recoup over $37 million in previously ordered refunds associated with transmission line loss overpayments was arbitrary and capricious. We argued that, because financial market participants pay transmission line loss charges, and for the period at issue also paid for the transmission system through the payment of transmission charges, they were entitled to a fair share of the over-collections paid back to all other participants. The court agreed and found unreasonable FERC's decision to deny an allocation to financial participants while they were paying transmission charges and also challenged FERC's decision to first order such payments and then almost two years later change its mind and seek to claw back the refund amounts. The Court remanded to FERC for reconsideration and explanation. Black Oak Energy, LLC v. FERC, No. 08-1386 (Aug. 6, 2013). The remand also led PJM to agree to a stay of Delaware state court proceedings initiated by PJM to collect the amounts from the three of the marketers.

We are working with Central Asia on creation of regional electricity and gas markets to encourage coordination of cross-border interconnection investments.

We are assisting Via Science to provide reliability services for grid operators by collecting and analyzing data.

The litigation attorneys in our Augusta office successfully defended a mechanical services company in connection with work done on a hydroelectric facility.

On behalf of Beacon Power Corporation, one of our attorneys worked with ISOs/RTOs to develop tariffs for FERC’s approval that established a category of ancillary service providers for companies providing fast-responding Frequency Regulation. As a result of the implementation of these tariffs, flywheels and batteries were permitted to bid competitively for specific ancillary services.

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.

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.

John Bulman is currently sitting on a Dispute Review Board for a nuclear power plant construction project. Industry professionals are chosen to sit on Dispute Review Boards by the interested parties involved with a construction project for their experience, their independence, their commitment to the project, and their training as mediators and arbitrators. 

The U.S. Agency for International Development has been working with representatives of the Libyan provisional government to restructure its electricity market to attract needed private investment. Although any recommended changes likely will not be implemented until the civil war ends, Pierce Atwood attorney Julia Weller has been asked to draft a new Electricity Market Law for Libya to introduce international best practices, establish a phased introduction of competition and create a new independent regulator. 

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.

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.

On behalf of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, we headed a team of legal and technical experts in assessing the legal and regulatory framework for energy efficiency in the industrial sector of Kazakhstan, surveying the energy use of the biggest energy consumers, identifying international best practices benchmarks for energy consumption, and performing a benchmarking of the leading industrial companies in Kazakhstan.

We represent energy companies in all types of enforcement proceedings before FERC—from investigations to trials. We also routinely provide audit and regulatory compliance training.

We represent the project developer of a 150 MW battery energy storage facility before FERC and NYISO.

We advocated for RES-Americas before FERC and state initiatives to help ensure the use of our client’s battery systems on the grid.

Pierce Atwood successfully represented the U.S. Energy Storage Association in a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission rulemaking. In its Order 841, FERC found that existing RTO/ISO market rules are unjust and unreasonable in light of barriers that they present to the participation of electric storage resources.

Pierce Atwood represented Great Bay Renewables in connection with a follow-on transaction with its development partner, U.S. renewable energy developer Hexagon Energy, LLC. Great Bay will provide up to $30 million to support upcoming interconnection security requirements to advance Hexagon’s 3.4 GW PJM portfolio in the interconnection process.

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.

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.

We are assisting Ascendant, BELCO, and other Ascendant companies with preparing comprehensive legislation, implementing regulations, and related materials for consideration by Ascendant and other stakeholders within Bermuda, in order to create a legal, regulatory, and publicly accepted framework that will support necessary investment in energy infrastructure (including renewable generation and a proposed LNG import facility, to permit gas-fired power generation), demand-side management, a significant roof-top PV program, and related efforts to diversify BELCO’s generation portfolio, and stabilize customer costs, while maintaining a robust and reliable system and without triggering further retail price hikes that would be politically infeasible.

Assisting Bright Community Capital, a subsidiary of Coastal Enterprises, Inc., with all aspects of fund formation and capital raise efforts for a tax equity fund and a sponsor equity fund, which will be used to acquire mid-size solar PV projects with a focus on those in low-income areas or benefitting low-income people.

We represent the national electric transmission company of Kyrgyzstan in negotiating all project documents related to the development of the Central Asia-South Asia (CASA-1000) Transmission Project, a 1300 MW transmission line to enable the sale of excess summer hydropower from the Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan to Afghanistan and Pakistan. The $1.3 billion project, to be financed by the World Bank and other multilateral institutions, involves construction of three DC/AC converters, over 750 km of HVDC lines and 477 km of HVAC lines. The project achieved financial close in April 2015 and construction is scheduled to start in 2016.

Pierce Atwood represented Great Bay Renewables in the provision of a $50 million interconnection financing facility for Geenex, a leading developer of utility-scale energy projects, which will support readiness deposits for Geenex’s PJM TC2 projects. This financing facility strengthens Geenex’s ability to advance a robust pipeline of projects through PJM’s interconnection queue.

We represented the Independent Oil & Gas Association of West Virginia, Inc. in a successful resolution of a contentious multi-party settlement of Texas Eastern Transmission's revised natural gas quality specifications. This settlement secured the flexibility and standards needed for Marcellus Shale gas and traditional Appalachian supplies to meet pipeline specifications.

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.

For the Kingdom of Jordan, we served as lead counsel to the Ministry of Economy and the National Electric Company in the negotiation of all project documents in connection with a private investor funded and developed 375-400 MW combined cycle gas plant; significantly, due to the flexibility and cooperation of all parties, including the private investor, the government, and lenders, we were able to achieve financial close in November 2009 at the height of the global economic crisis. The plant began commercial operations in early 2012.

Represented Maine Natural Gas on its annual cost of gas proceeding. We ably assisted MNG to prepare the filing and get it approved by a Commission without any issue in a matter of weeks. MNG was very pleased with the outcome and to have Pierce Atwood on its team.

In Georgia, we advised the Ministry of Energy on a variety of issues related to promotion of hydropower investment for export of electricity to Turkey, including an assessment of the legal and regulatory framework for investment in the hydropower sector, drafting of an Information Memorandum for private investors, review of the Market Rules, drafting and negotiation of a Cross-Border Electricity Trade Agreement between Turkey and Georgia which was executed in January 2012, and development of a new market design.

As development of the Marcellus shale natural gas formation accelerated in 2010, Texas Eastern Transmission, a major interstate pipeline, and its large utility customers began to develop new quality specifications for natural gas shipped on the pipeline. Although Appalachian natural gas has long included high concentrations of ethane, and that gas previously met pipeline quality specifications and posed no threat to pipelines or consumer equipment, the large utilities wanted the ethane removed from the gas stream – at the producer's cost. The principal market for ethane is the petrochemical manufacturing region in Texas and Louisiana and there is no existing pipeline or other reasonable means of shipping the ethane. Representing long-time gas producer association clients Independent Oil & Gas Association of West Virginia, Inc. and Independent Oil & Gas Association of Pennsylvania, Pierce Atwood led the efforts to forge a multiparty settlement of the quality specifications at FERC. Pierce Atwood's efforts avoided costly litigation and secured the producers and pipelines upstream of Texas Eastern significant flexibility and gas quality standards that ensure Marcellus shale gas and traditional Appalachian supplies will meet pipeline specifications and flow to critical northeastern market.

Pierce Atwood represented Great Bay Renewables in its investment in Longroad Energy’s Titan Solar project, a 70 MWac utility-scale solar project located in Imperial County, California. The investment was used to finance the buyout of a tax equity investor’s residual post-flip interest.

Pierce Atwood represented Great Bay Renewables in connection with its establishment of a $10.1 million interconnection deposit loan facility to support its development partner, Hexagon Energy. 

Represented NTE Energy, a power developer and energy services provider, in strategizing, structuring, negotiating, and documenting equity investments for three natural gas-fired power plants valued at more than $1.1 billion.

Pierce Atwood represented Great Bay Renewables in the formation of a strategic partnership with Granite Source Power, a developer of battery energy storage and electricity generation projects.

We are advising large pension funds in interest rate hedging programs, including OTC derivatives and exchange-traded futures contracts and related clearing agreements.

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 elsewhere, 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.

We won a precedent setting appeal before the Texas Public Utility Commission involving a decision of the Electric Reliability Counsel of Texas (ERCOT) on behalf of our clients West Oaks Energy and Longhorn Energy. This PUCT decision rejected a retroactive market resettlement that had been ordered by ERCOT, resulting in a $10 million price reversal for our clients and others. In this case, ERCOT adjusted settled market prices, on a retroactive basis, for the December 1, 2010 through February 1, 2011 period , claiming there had been a “significant software or data error” that justified the price change. In the appeal to the PUCT we demonstrated that in fact there was no software or data error, simply an unhappiness on ERCOT’s part with how its own market design was functioning. The PUCT, by unanimous vote, agreed with us and also agreed that while prospective rule changes are needed from time to time it is extremely harmful to market participants, and to market confidence, to try and make these changes on a retroactive basis. This decision has also led to a potential reversal of a second market resettlement that was ordered by ERCOT. In that second case, and on behalf of firm client XO Energy TX, we had challenged an almost identical retroactive market resettlement as unlawful and contrary to system protocols. This second resettlement involved over $2.7 million. At ERCOT’s request this matter is now being held in abeyance until the next ERCOT Board meeting when it will be reconsidered. We are delighted with these outcomes and believe the PUCT decision is likely to put an end to unwarranted, after the fact price changes in the ERCOT market. We believe it also establishes very important precedent for all ISO electricity markets.

Representation of a renewable energy developer in the factoring of receivables from ISO-NE.

Pierce Atwood represented Great Bay Renewables in connection with its $45 million royalty financing of U.S. renewable energy developer Hexagon Energy, LLC. With this transaction, Great Bay gains future royalties related to Hexagon’s portfolio of solar, solar plus energy storage and standalone energy storage development projects. Hexagon’s portfolio currently consists of 43 development projects totaling 5.3 GWac located across 12 states and four regional transmission organizations.

Pierce Atwood represented Great Bay Renewables in connection with its $46 million royalty investment with Longroad Energy in support of Longroad’s acquisition of the 70 MWac Titan Solar project in Imperial County, California. This project is Great Bay’s first royalty investment in California, and its second operating project royalty investment with Longroad Energy. Pierce Atwood previously represented Great Bay in connection with its royalty on Longroad’s Prospero 2 solar project in Texas.

Pierce Atwood represented Great Bay Renewables in connection with its $42.5 million royalty investment in Apex Clean Energy’s 202 MW Lotus Wind Project in Macoupin County and Morgan County, Illinois. Lotus Wind, a premier Midwest renewable energy project, is anticipated to achieve commercial operations in Q2 of 2026.

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

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

Pierce Atwood represented the City of Somersworth, New Hampshire, in the development of a major solar photovoltaic (PV) installation on the 26-acre Somersworth Sanitary Landfill Superfund Site, including negotiation of a Payment in Lieu of Taxes agreement and ground lease. The energy produced by this project will be sold to the City under the state’s group net-metering program, resulting in both economic and environmental benefits. The project will be New Hampshire’s first solar array located on a former Superfund Site. Ameresco, Inc., a renewable energy asset developer, owner and operator, is developing the project.

Pierce Atwood represents Kearsarge Energy, a significant developer of solar energy, in connection with a proposed 17-acre, 5 MW ground mounted solar array in Walpole, Massachusetts. Our attorneys successfully argued that the town of Walpole’s zoning bylaws unlawfully prohibited large-scale solar facilities, paving the way for Kearsarge Energy to move forward with development of its solar facility.

We represented the U.S. Energy Storage Association before FERC, state PUCs, and ISOs/RTOs to develop and implement rules and regulations in the capacity, energy, and ancillary services markets.

Defended a utility company against contract and tort claims.