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“The team at Shepherd and Wedderburn work hard to ensure a close working relationship with our internal legal team. They are pivotal advisers that truly understand our business and its needs.”
Legal 500 (2024)
Our commitment to making a difference informs and guides everything we do. It is recognised by our clients and peers too: we are often described as the destination of choice for clean energy legal advice.
We are not just legal experts in clean energy – we are deeply immersed in the sector itself, and have been for several decades. We have worked with clients across the sector on a huge variety of projects, including many that are high-profile and groundbreaking. The advice we provide is based on the practical experience, and understanding of the commercial drivers, that we have developed during that time.
Our team can provide a whole of life service – from the inception of a project through development to FID, financial close and onto the secondary markets. And because we work with developer, investor, utility, funder, supply chain and public sector clients, we have experience at all the entry levels.
We also understand the commercial, regulatory and policy challenges that clean energy businesses face. We know how to drive deals forward, identifying the material issues and finding solutions and mitigants, using the skills of sector experts with legal expertise in many different areas of law.
We play an active role in the sector’s key trade body groups, and are well connected with many of the sector’s key decision-makers, so we are often the first port of call for clients looking to discuss new developments and key issues affecting the market.
Above all, we are passionate about the need to achieve the UK’s target of reaching net zero by 2050 and Scotland’s target of net zero by 2045. We set high standards for ourselves too: our target is for the firm to achieve net zero by 2030, and we are the first professional services firm to be a City Climate Champion under both the Edinburgh Climate Compact (2021) and the Sustainable Glasgow Green Economy Hub Charter (2023). We are also active members in the Legal Sustainability Alliance – a collective of firms that are committed to sustainability and are showing leadership on the issue.
Onshore renewables, including:
Offshore renewables (covering fixed and floating offshore wind as well as wave and tidal)
Low Carbon, including:
Transmission, including:
We also offer specialist advice in other areas, including ports and harbours, aviation, immigration, intellectual property, rural and crofting, and health and safety.
Offshore wind
We have worked in offshore wind projects across the UK since 2003. The Beatrice demonstrator – two 5GW turbines installed adjacent to the Beatrice oil field off the north-east coast of Scotland in the Moray Firth – was at the time the world’s largest wind turbine generator. Since then we have advised developers in all the major UK offshore rounds; and in Scotland, we currently advise a number of the successful developers on the ScotWind and INTOG leasing rounds.
Our expertise has further developed and deepened over time through working with clients like the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult, a technology innovation centre, supporting industry to collaborate to overcome known developmental, consenting, financing or construction challenges.
Onshore renewables: storage, wind, solar and hydro
We have been at forefront of onshore wind development since the 1990s, when we advised a major utility scale developer on its first three onshore wind farms. Since then, we have advised on more than 250 successful onshore wind projects in the UK alone, and are also now advising on co-location, life extension and repowering on a number of those projects. Our onshore work also extends to solar, hydro, battery storage and hydrogen projects and we act for many of the UK’s prominent organisations in this area, including developers, utilities, funders, investors and supply chain partners.
Low carbon
We advise funders and investors, utilities, public sector bodies, developers, landowners, and joint ventures on all aspects of their low carbon projects, including both large and small-scale decarbonisation projects. The challenge around decarbonisation is acute and success will involve a real partnership between public and private sectors to decarbonise the major challenges around e.g. heat, transport and manufacturing. We have worked with local authorities, housing associations, utilities and other private sector clients with the funding and delivery of innovative decarbonisation projects. We are also working with developers on the newer evolving technologies, such as hydrogen and CCUS which will form part of the solution in the UK’s goal to reach net zero.
Meet our key contacts
Head of Clean Energy and Partner
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Contact us
Head of Clean Energy and Partner
Key Contacts
Head of Clean Energy and Partner
