Conventional Power

Areas of Focus

Our roots run deep in the conventional power sector. Through the inevitable upturns and downturns in the market, our firm has had a long history of partnering with electricity and gas utilities, merchant generators and transmission and distribution companies, giving us a deep understanding of the sector’s landscape and its inherent challenges and opportunities.

We have significant experience across all technologies, spanning natural gas—including combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) and open cycle gas turbine (OCGT)—coal and heavy fuel oil (HFO), nuclear and their supporting grid infrastructure.

Our experience spans the complete life cycle of baseload, mid-merit and peaking power projects. In addition, we advise on grid-connected conventional power projects when combined with carbon capture, utilization & storage (CCUS). We also have deep experience in conventional power generation in an industrial and behind-the-meter context.

As conventional power remains the dominant source of baseload electricity, our lawyers help clients playing a key role in “keeping the lights on” and ensuring energy security by providing grid ancillary services. These vital components support system operators through flexibility, frequency response, synchronous inertia and other essential services such as black start capability. These services are particularly critical as national electricity grids transition to a greater proportion of intermittent renewables in their energy mix.

On the regulatory side, we help clients navigate the complexities of compliance, market design, regulatory and enforcement matters. Our powerhouse team of experienced practitioners includes former Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) staffers from the Office of General Counsel. This gives us an insider’s perspective on the agency’s deliberative processes and the commercial implications of rulemaking.

We also support clients in offtake arrangements, such as power purchase agreements, and derivatives, including weather derivatives, heat rate call options (HRCO) and capacity agreements.

We are best known for our capabilities in the following core areas across the conventional power sector:

• Project finance, development, construction, permitting, operations and maintenance
• Mergers & acquisitions (M&A), joint venture and securities & corporate governance, ranging from public company transactions to acquisitions and divestitures of individual power plants for both regulated utilities and independent power producers (IPPs)
• Liability management & financial restructuring, distressed and special situations
• International trade, lobbying & public policy and export controls & economic sanctions
• Energy regulatory
• Tax structuring & equity financing.

Our experience spans the complete life cycle of conventional power projects:

• Development, construction, operation and maintenance
• Financing and refinancings, whether using bank debt, institutional capital or private credit
• Acquisition and disposals and joint ventures
• Financial restructurings and special situations
• Government support and incentives including federal tax credits and grants
• Energy regulatory advice
• Feedstock and offtake arrangements
• Green corporate and virtual power purchase agreements
• Electricity, emissions and renewable certificates of origin trading
• Land and permitting issues
• Grid network and transmission infrastructure and assets.

Cross-Practice, Global Team

We understand the impact and changing role of conventional power generation as a result of the energy transition and what this means for project structuring and risk allocation.

As power companies transition and adapt to the current environment, our cross-practice team helps clients achieve their decarbonization and sustainability goals through pursuing CCUS projects, decommissioning coal and other fossil fuel plants, and transactions combining conventional power with renewable energy sources at utility scale.

Our lawyers handle conventional power matters in both established and emerging markets, including the United States, United Kingdom and Europe, Mexico and Latin America, Asia, Canada, Africa and the Middle East.

Leading Lobbying & Public Policy Lawyers

Our powerhouse lobbying & public policy practice includes many former members of Congress and regulators. These lawyers and advisors help clients navigate the key regulatory and policy issues facing conventional power projects in markets around the world.

Representative Matters

• Represented CenterPoint Energy, a Fortune 500 electric and natural gas utility, in several transactions, including its $6 billion merger with Vectren Corporation.
• Served as primary outside corporate counsel to FirstEnergy Corp. (FE), one of the largest investor-owned utilities in the U.S., from 1996 to 2018, when its subsidiary FirstEnergy Solutions Corp. (FES) restructured under chapter 11. Advised FE and its utility operating subsidiaries, merchant generation subsidiaries, transmission subsidiaries and other unregulated subsidiaries on all capital markets, securities, finance, M&A and regulatory matters. Also represented FES in its $5 billion debt restructuring and continue to advise Energy Harbor Corp., the company that emerged from bankruptcy, on various corporate and securities matters.
• Advised VPI Holding Limited, an affiliate of energy and commodities trader Vitol S.A., in connection with the company’s proposed acquisition of four CCGT power plants in the United Kingdom from Drax Group plc for a consideration of £193 million.
• Serve as primary outside capital markets and securities counsel to Spire Inc., a public utility holding company. Recent work includes an “at-the-market” equity offering, registered preferred stock offering, debt tender offer and public offering of equity units as well as a series of acquisitions that effectively tripled the size of the company.
• Represented JXTG Nippon Oil & Energy Corporation, a Japanese petroleum company, in its acquisition from Advanced Power of 15% interest in South Field Energy, a 1,182 megawatt (MW) natural-gas-fired thermal power generation project in Ohio, through its affiliate ENEOS Power USA LLC.
• Represented the ad hoc committee of senior unsecured noteholders of Pacific Gas and Electric Company, the nation’s largest utility, in the company’s closely watched $30+ billion chapter 11 cases—one of the industry’s largest, highest-profile ongoing bankruptcies.
• Counseled Carlyle Group, an American multinational private equity firm, in its joint venture with Schneider Electric relating to the development of energy-as-a-service opportunities.
• Represented an owner of coal-fired generation assets in the decommissioning of a fleet of coal-fired generation assets, including deconstruction and conversion of actual generation assets, as well as all related ash-bond and pollution remediation measures and requirements.
• Advised owners in the negotiations of multiple engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contracts for new power generation facilities, including combined and simple-cycle natural-gas-fired, coal and nuclear power plants totaling in excess of 10 gigawatts (GW).
• Represented a nuclear power company in multiple projects related to the storage and processing of nuclear waste and in the negotiations for an EPC contract for a new nuclear power plant.