Corporate power purchase agreements Lawyers

Leading advice on corporate PPAs

Corporate power purchase agreements can reduce your carbon footprint, support the creation of renewable energy, and provide cost savings and energy security. With our breadth of experience, we can help you with any type of PPA, anywhere in the world. In fact, no other law firm closes as many corporate PPAs as we do.

As businesses become more aware of the need to decrease their greenhouse gas emissions, corporate power purchase agreements (PPAs) are gaining in popularity. With today’s substantial wind and solar development and an active M&A market, even low-energy users are benefitting from corporate PPAs to reduce their carbon footprints and obtain cost savings in volatile markets.

We’re here to help you navigate every step. Our global team is consistently recognized by inspiratia for doing more corporate PPA deals than any other law firm. We provide guidance on all models of corporate PPAs, whether virtual, physical, hybrid or private wire – within one jurisdiction, or across borders.

We advise corporate off-takers (in a wide range of industries), generators, funders and licensed suppliers across more than 30 countries, so we fully understand the drivers and issues from all perspectives.

Our team also knows what it’s like to walk in your shoes. When we advise you on a corporate PPA, we bring to the table our own experience as the first law firm in the world to have signed a corporate PPA as an off-taker. Our entry into a corporate PPA with NextEnergy is a major milestone in our firm’s journey to decarbonize and supports our commitment to halving our greenhouse gas emissions in absolute terms by 2030.

“Our team knows what it’s like to walk in your shoes. When we advise you on a corporate PPA, we bring to the table our own experience as the first law firm in the world to have signed a corporate PPA as an off-taker.”

We of course help you consider PPA objectives against material risks and interactions with other key project agreements including availability, outage, connections, curtailment and balancing. But we also help you with the transfer and use of all relevant project and environmental attributes (for example, EU GoOs, UK REGOs, international IRECs), the sleeving of electricity under supply agreements, and the optimization of sleeved renewable electricity with other price hedging arrangements.

As you’d expect, we’re fully abreast of legislation and regulation in all major jurisdictions, and voluntary standards including the GHGP guidance, the RE100 Technical Guidance and the RECS Good Practice Guidelines. And we’ve been instrumental in developing standards such as IRECS or EnergyTag.

But, above all, we’re innovators. Our team created the “hybrid” virtual power purchase agreement (vPPA), and drafted for the European Federation of Energy Traders (EFET) the standard financially settled and physically settled PPAs, the standard GoO and REGO Certificates Master Agreement and the standard Hydrogen GoO Master Agreement.

We’ll provide comprehensive advice to guide you through the full process of implementing a PPA and ensure you achieve a successful outcome.

Awards and recognition

Experience

Advising Citizens Financial Group, Inc., one of the oldest and largest financial institutions in the US, on the negotiation of a corporate PPA with Ørsted, a Danish power company, to match 100% of Citizens’ power consumption across its entire operational footprint with renewable energy credits
Advising Goldman Sachs on three virtual corporate PPAs with NextEnergy, as the developer, in respect of three solar assets in the UK
Advising NatWest on its procurement of 100 GWh per year of renewable power from two solar projects in the UK via two physically settled PPAs
Advising EFET on the development of the standard financially settled and physically settled PPAs and the standard hydrogen CMA; these are the first standards in the market and have been vetted by the Legal Committee of EFET, comprising all major European energy companies
Advising a global retail giant on its procurement of virtual PPAs across Europe and the US
Advising Prime Capital and Enlight Renewables in relation to the 372 MW EUR400 million Björnberget onshore wind farm in Sweden, which is backed by a PPA with a one of the leading technology players
Advising Softbank Energy on the negotiation of a PPA with Maui Electric Company for a 40 MW solar photovoltaic energy project paired with a 160 MWh battery energy storage on Maui and the subsequent sale of the Kamaole Project
Advising Credit Suisse Energy Infrastructure Partners AG (now EIP) and E.ON on their investment into, and financing of, the 475 MW Nysäter onshore wind farm in Sweden; the project is supported by a PPA signed with a global energy major, providing a comprehensive set of risk management services
Advising GE on the PPAs to be used on an electronic aggregated trading platform to be traded in the UK, Germany, Spain, and the Nordics
Advising the NSG Group, a major glass manufacturer in Poland, on its first virtual PPA
Advising two generators on eight corporate PPAs in Ireland involving two major global technology companies
Advising a global technology company on corporate PPAs and associated regulatory issues in over 15 jurisdictions
Advising AB InBev on its virtual PPAs in Australia and in the UK (the UK’s first unsubsidized solar virtual PPA)
Advising Contact Energy on corporate PPAs with Pan Pac and Oji Fibre Solutions – the first and second corporate PPAs to have been closed in New Zealand