While 2022 saw record commitments to renewable generation by commercial and industrial customers in the U.S., agreements with C&I customers in 2023 were affected by federal investigations into tariff avoidance, storm responses, supply chain disruptions and importation issues. Nonetheless, the outlook for growth remains promising for 2024, as corporate purchasers continue to drive the U.S. renewable markets.Continue Reading Beyond Borders: Global Corporate PPA Outlook
President Joe Biden signed into law the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (“HR 5376”) (the “IRA” or the “Act”), on August 16, 2022.Continue Reading Inflation Reduction Act: Wage and Apprenticeship Requirements
On October 18, 2022, the Department of the Interior announced that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (“BOEM”) will hold an auction to sell five offshore wind energy leases in federal waters off the California coast, with two off the coast of Humboldt and three off the coast of Morro Bay. PACW-1 is the first sale of offshore wind leases on the west coast of the United States, and the first to support the development of floating offshore wind projects anywhere in the US. The auction follows the record-breaking New York Bight auction and the Carolina Long Bay auction, both held earlier this year.Continue Reading California Offshore Wind Auction
On August 7, 2022, the Senate passed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (H.R. 5376) (the “Reconciliation Bill”) on a party line vote with the deciding vote cast by the Vice President. The Senate’s passage of the Reconciliation Bill likely satisfies the requirements for a Proposed Change in Tax Law, as defined under most tax equity financing documents. However, in general, those agreements require that only adverse Proposed Changes in Tax Law be reflected in the Base Case Model in advance of a Funding Date. In general, changes that affect the tax capacity of an investor are not within the scope of a Proposed Change in Tax Law but, as discussed below, even if the corporate alternative minimum tax were considered an adverse change, as finally adopted the AMT should not have a material adverse impact on tax capacity.Continue Reading Tax Law Changes in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (H.R. 5376)
On May 18, a coalition of 235 consumer, environmental, and public interest groups penned a petition urging the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) to investigate alleged anticompetitive business practices undertaken by electric utilities, pursuant to Article 6(b) of the FTC Act, which empowers the agency to conduct a broad investigative study and request information. Sec. 6(b), 15 U.S.C. § 46(b).Continue Reading Federal Trade Commission Petitioned To Investigate Electric Utilities
This is the second of three articles on the Solar Industry and Forced Labor. Here we focus on interactions with solar module suppliers. Our first article in the series focused on regulations in this area, and our next will focus on investors and their requirements.
Continue Reading Clean Energy’s Messy Problem II: The Solar Industry, Its Suppliers, and the Complex Task of Combatting Forced Labor
This is the first of three articles on the Solar Industry and Forced Labor. Here we focus on regulation. Articles in the coming weeks will focus on issues facing importers and their suppliers, and on investors and their requirements.
Continue Reading Clean Energy’s Messy Problem: The Solar Industry, the U.S. Government, and the Complex Task of Combatting Forced Labor
Continue Reading Anti-Forced Labor Measures Turn Up the Heat on Chinese Solar Equipment Suppliers
Offshore Wind Goes West. On May 25, the Biden administration and the State of California announced an effort to develop areas off of the coast of California for up to 4.6 GW of offshore wind generation. While Northeastern states and project developers are poised to begin bringing commercial scale offshore projects to market, this announcement represents the first concrete step to open up the West coast to offshore wind development. Wind generation in the waters off the West coast will face some unique challenges (such as water depths that will force the use of floating wind turbines that are still in pre-commercial stages of development), but will also face some of the same challenges that we have been working through on the East coast (such as constrained transmission corridors, undeveloped onshore interconnection and transmission infrastructure and the need for Jones Act-qualified vessels). Here are six key things to be aware of in the development of floating offshore wind in California.
Continue Reading Six Key Things to be Aware of in the Development of Floating Offshore Wind in California
As the demand for renewable energy in the United State increases, so does related project M&A activity. For decades, the Sheppard Mullin team has been working on renewable energy project M&A and now we are helping our clients address several accelerating market trends for projects at all stages of the project life cycle. Here are six key items to be aware of today in US renewable energy M&A transactions.
Continue Reading Six key items to be aware of today in US Renewable Energy M&A Transactions
A September 17, 2020 Final Rule adopted by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“Commission”) removes barriers to the participation of distributed energy resource aggregators in Regional Transmission Organization (“RTO”) and Independent System Operator (“ISO”) markets.[1] The Commission’s modified regulations[2] require each RTO/ISO to revise its tariff to ensure that its market rules facilitate the participation of distributed energy resource aggregators. Order No. 2222 is a positive development for distributed energy resources that would like to participate in wholesale electric markets but are unable to do so, and should encourage greater renewable energy resource development in the coming years. However, the scope and implementation of each RTO’s/ISO’s participation model remains to be seen: distributed energy resources will need to keep an eye on RTOs’/ISOs’ proposed tariff revisions. Moreover, maximizing the opportunity for distributed energy resources to contribute to markets will be affected by whether the Commission continues to reform Commission-jurisdictional markets to broaden participation of emerging technologies as it did in Order No. 2222, or adopt measures that bolster the viability of fossil and nuclear resources at the expense of emerging technologies as it has done in other proceedings.
Continue Reading Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Gives Distributed Energy Resource Aggregators a Boost; Implementation Will Present Challenges