Green Tea. Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP’s renewable energy practice prepares a daily summary of transactions and news, both domestic and international, covering the renewable energy sector. To sign up for these daily e-mails, please click here.

Akin Gump is a world leader in the development and financing of energy projects. As energy markets have moved to embrace renewable energy projects, our longstanding energy knowledge and experience have enabled our clients to undertake renewable projects with the confidence and support an established energy practice provides.

Our renewable energy practice is headquartered in San Francisco, with practitioners located in California, Texas, New York and Washington, D.C., thereby giving our clients access to the centers of renewable activity, project finance and legislative action. Our firm is a full service firm that provides clients with a single team able to handle all aspects of the transaction—including project development, finance, tax structuring, regulatory and environmental compliance, and legislative access. Because we are able to bring together a specialized and experienced team tailored for each transaction, we are able to provide the most comprehensive solutions to our renewable energy clients.

We represent clients at all levels of a transaction from the purchase of assets, through structuring and financing the transaction, to power off take and project development, including construction, acquisition of turbines and associated intellectual property downstream sales. We are committed to supporting our clients’ business objectives, to contributing tangibly to our clients’ success throughout the full life cycle of the projects in which they engage and to providing innovative solutions to the evolving challenges faced by our clients in connection with their renewable energy projects and initiatives.

Our lawyers are experienced in structuring transactions, interpreting and managing regulatory requirements and anticipating—and helping our clients stay in front of—market and regulatory changes affecting the renewable energy industry.

Akin Gump produces the industry-leading blog ClimateIntel.com as well as white papers, providing clients and other renewable energy market participants with a thorough and germane daily analysis of domestic and international regulatory, policy and litigation developments driving investment in climate change technologies, industrial sectors and markets. Our continued leadership in this role is a critical tool in providing progressive advice and support to our renewable energy clients.

Listed below are selected examples of our experience—

• Capital Markets. Represented the initial purchaser in the placement of common stock of a leading producer and marketer of ethanol and related by-products and the underwriters in its initial public offering of common stock.
• Full Service Legal Counsel. Global legal advisor to a company developing engines and engine technology to burn cleaner fuels, headquartered in Texas with operations in the United States, Argentina and India. We have represented the company in joint venture arrangements and business disputes, as well as in general corporate planning, including tax planning.
• Investment Fund Formation. Represented one of the world's largest private equity firms (with more than 60 funds and offices in more than 20 countries) in the structuring, formation and negotiation of a series of investment fund vehicles related to the $685 million Carlyle/Riverstone Renewable Energy Infrastructure Fund I and other strategic alternatives.
• Wind Project Finance and Development. Reviewed, revised and advised on the site leases, engineering, procurement and construction contracts, turbine manufacturer’s and developer’s warranty agreements, operations and maintenance (O & M) agreements, power purchase agreements, wind data software licensing agreement, balance of plant performance testing documents, bridge financing and security agreements and permanent financing documents for various wind power plants in Texas.
• Solar Roofing Intellectual Property. Counsel to a company developing an integrated solar roofing system suitable for new home construction in intellectual property matters.
• Biodiesel Ventures. Diligence and negotiation in connection with the acquisition of a 45 million gallon biodiesel facility in Illinois to produce ethanol using soybeans as feedstock.