United Kingdom
Tom Metcalfe
He/himSenior AssociateAbout
Tom is a Senior Associate in DLA Piper’s Finance Group focused on renewable energy. Tom specialises in advising clients on national and international renewable energy projects, with particular experience in onshore wind, solar developments and power purchase agreements including in Finland, Sweden, Poland, the Netherlands, Ireland and the UK. Tom has extensive experience advising purchasers, sellers and lenders on the development, sale and acquisition of wind and solar assets across Europe including in relation to complex multi-jurisdiction portfolios. Tom is also the Leeds Co-Representative for DLA Piper's Iris Network.
Professional QualificationsSolicitor of the Senior Courts of England and Wales
EXPERIENCE
- Advised the shareholders of Elgin Energy on its sale to Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners through its flagship CI V fund. The arrangement will see CIP invest £250m, alongside Elgin Energy's retained management team, to expand and deliver some 15GW in the company's existing international pipeline (2024).
- Advised leading renewable energy developer, Luminous Energy on its landmark UK solar virtual PPA with Bristol Airport. Tom led the drafting and negotiation of this PPA which is thought to be the first to work alongside a government Contract for Difference (CfD) arrangement. The arrangement provides price certainty for Bristol Airport in relation to a significant proportion of its energy needs alongside REGO certificates and ensures that a significant proportion of the solar farm's revenues will be contracted for up to 15 years (2024).
- Advised NTR PLC on its acquisition of a 86.8 MW windfarm in the Haapajärvi municipality of Finland's Northern Ostrobothnia province on behalf of its L&G NTR Clean Power (Europe) Fund. Acquired from ABO Wind AG, a German renewable project developer, the windfarm will provide clean energy for the equivalent of 36,800 homes across Finland once fully operational (2023).
- Advised Elgin Energy, a leading international independent solar and storage developer, on the sale of a 100 MW portfolio of three solar PV projects across the UK to Pennon Group PLC, an England-based water utility company. The portfolio includes three projects located in sites in Buckinghamshire, Aberdeenshire, and Cumbria, each with a capacity range from 15 MW to 50 MW and a combined capacity of 100 MW. It is expected that all projects will be operational during 2025 (2023).
- Advised Canary Wharf Group as offtaker on a sleeved physical corporate power purchase agreement with Brookfield, one of the world's largest investors in renewable power. The deal will meet over 70% of Canary Wharf Group's electricity demand. The widely publicised 15-year PPA is expected to provide renewable power to some of the UK's biggest corporates occupying office space in Canary Wharf's 150 acres, effectively cutting their greenhouse gas emissions and reducing their energy costs (2023).
- Advised Elgin Energy, a leading international independent solar and storage developer, on the sale of a 519MW portfolio of solar PV projects and 70MW of co-located energy storage capacity. The portfolio sale marked the UK's largest solar PV transaction to date, including twelve projects at the pre-construction stage located across England, Wales and Scotland, with a combined capacity of 519MW (2022).
- Advised Prime Capital AG and Prime Green Energy Infrastructure Fund S.A. SICAV-RAIF on the acquisition of the 192 MW Lappfjärd wind farm from CPC Finland (2021).
- Advised BASF on the acquisition of 49.5% of Vattenfall's offshore wind farm Hollandse Kust Zuid in The Netherlands. Once fully operational, the wind farm will be the largest offshore wind farm in the world with 140 wind turbines and a total installed capacity of 1.5 Gigawatt (2021).
- Advised NSG UK Enterprises Limited, part of NSG Group, the world's leading supplier of glass and glazing systems in the business areas of architectural, automotive and creative technology, on their first virtual power purchase agreement The contract will see approximately 100 gigawatt hours (GWh) of NSG Group's annual electricity demand supplied at a fixed price reducing exposure to the volatile wholesale electricity prices currently seen. This amount of clean energy is equivalent to avoiding the carbon emissions from nearly 15,000 passenger vehicles driven for one year, or more than 278 million kilometres driven by an average passenger car (2021).
- Advised Prime Capital AG, the independent asset manager and financial services provider, and Enlight Renewable Energy, the Tel-Aviv-listed independent power producer, on their co-investment in the ready-to-build Björnberget wind park project in central Sweden (one of the largest onshore wind projects to start construction in Europe in 2020) (2020).
Education
- University of York, LL.B., First Class Honours, 2012
- University of York, LL.M., Distinction, 2014
- University of Law, PGDip (LPC), Distinction, 2015
