Electricity

Comprehensive Services to the Electricity Industry

For 30 years, Van Ness Feldman’s nationally recognized Electric Practice has helped clients effectively navigate the complex legal and regulatory issues that define the electric industry. 

The firm represents a wide range of electricity clients throughout the United States and Canada, and these representations encompass all electric industry issues – regulatory, legislative, and transactional – before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), other Executive Branch agencies, state commissions, courts, and Congress. 

Our Approach

The firm works with clients to determine the potential effect of various policy initiatives and proceedings on client operations and business plans, and counsels clients on strategic options to address such matters.  We also help clients take electricity projects from concept to operation, providing counsel on project development, financing and ownership. 

The firm’s representations span the full array of electric regulatory issues such as:

• Power sales and transmission issues;
• Rate proceedings;
• Investigations and enforcement actions;
• Administrative litigation matters;
• Cost-based and market-based generation tariff development;
• Transmission access and pricing disputes;
• Commercial agreements;
• Mergers and acquisitions;
• Reliability and liability matters;
• Regional transmission organization development;
• Qualifying facility and exempt wholesale generator proceedings;
• Regulatory compliance;
• Jurisdictional and franchise disputes;
• Environmental compliance and integrated resource planning

Our Clients

The firm’s clients include:

• Energy Marketers
• Government-owned Electric Utilities and Cooperatives
• Investor-owned utilities
• Independent power producers
• Renewable Energy Projects
• Energy Efficiency Industries

Representative Matters

Project Development

• FutureGen.  The firm is counsel to the FutureGen Industrial Alliance, Inc.  The FutureGen project is a US $1 billion public-private partnership to design, build, and operate the world's first coal-fueled, near-zero emissions power plant.   The firm acts as project counsel on a variety of project development, financing, and related issues.
• Big Stone Unit 2 Power Project.  The firm represents Missouri River Energy Services (MRES) in the development of the project agreements for the 630 MW Unit 2 at the coal fired Big Stone Power Plant in northeastern South Dakota.  MRES is the largest participant in the plant.
• CAP-X 2020.  The firm represents Missouri River Energy Services in the development of the project agreements for the billion dollar multi line transmission upgrade project in Minnesota known as CAP-X-2020. 
• Merchant transmission projects.  On behalf of the Long Island Power Authority, the firm has been at the forefront in the development of rules for operation of merchant transmission lines operated by the Cross Sound Cable Company LLC which connects Long Island to New England and the soon-to-be completed Neptune Line establishing a merchant line between Long Island and New Jersey.

Transactional and Operational Issues

• Wind and renewable electricity generation project development and financing.  The firm provides regulatory counsel on the full range of renewable energy project development, including work for major project developers and financial institutions in the booming wind energy sector. 
• Advised electric utility clients on regulatory and project structuring issues for generation and merchant transmission projects.
• Established transmission service terms and rules for energy and ancillary service markets under ISO/RTO operations.
• Negotiated capacity use agreements for merchant transmission projects, joint venture agreements for construction of electric generation facilities, and assisting in asset sales of such generation and transmission facilities.

Legislative

• Secured a renewable energy bond provision for rural electric cooperatives, municipalities and tribes in the Energy Policy Act of 2005.
• Negotiated numerous other benefits in our clients’ interests in the Energy Policy Act of 2005.

Litigation, Administrative Proceedings and Appellate Matters

• California Refund Litigation.  The firm has represented a number of clients (including investor-owned and municipally-owned utilities and marketers) in ongoing administrative and judicial litigation concerning refund liability arising out of the California electricity crisis of 2000 and 2001.  Representing the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the firm won a key victory in Bonneville Power Administration v. FERC, a unanimous decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that FERC does not have refund jurisdiction over governmental entities. 
• Transmission Owner Lost Revenue Recovery Claims.  The firm represented Wisconsin Electric Power Company in the extremely contentious lost revenue recovery proceedings involving the integration of numerous transmission owners in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic regions into FERC-approved Regional Transmission Organizations.  The firm successfully negotiated and filed the first comprehensive bilateral settlement agreement accepted by the FERC, which served as the model settlement agreement for numerous other bilateral settlements.
• Renewable Energy Credit Litigation.  The firm has substantial experience in advising clients on cutting-edge regulatory issues regarding the ownership and conveyance of renewable energy credits (RECs). The firm successfully represented a coalition of renewable generators in obtaining a declaratory order from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on the ownership of RECs under PURPA contracts.  The firm also represents renewable generators in litigation before federal courts regarding REC ownership. Represented clients in interconnection and transmission access proceedings under FPA Sections 210, 211, and 212.
• Successfully argued for termination, without refunds, of a case, related to the litigation regarding refunds for sales in western markets, concerning sales in the Pacific Northwest.
• Represented transmission-owning municipal utilities before FERC regarding the treatment of their non-jurisdictional status and participation in FERC-regulated markets.

Hydropower Matters

• First-of-its-kind hydropower hearing.  Relying on new statutory rights provided in the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the firm represented PacifiCorp in an extensive trial-type administrative hearing on key issues in the relicensing of a 170 megawatt hydropower project in Northern California.  This was the first hearing of its kind under the new statute. 
• New York Power Authority.   The firm represented the New York Power Authority in securing a new fifty year license for the Niagara Power Project, the largest FERC-licensed hydroelectric facility in the United States.  The relicensing process culminated in a comprehensive, multi-party, settlement valued in excess of $1 billion.