Renewables
Recent years have seen a resurgence of the demand on rural land for renewable energy projects. Our agricultural law specialists collaborate with experts from other teams around the firm to provide a full service for developers and landowners.

As part of the climate change agenda, Scotland has set some ambitious targets, including net zero by 2035 and a completely decarbonised energy system by 2050. All types of rural land – farms, forests and estates – are increasingly providing resources for renewable energy projects.

The projects themselves are also evolving, often becoming larger in scale and focusing on the development of new technologies. Our team includes several renewables specialists such as Petra Grunenberg, Emma Robertson, Richard Leslie and Stuart Greenwood. Over the years our teams have advised on projects involving all the technologies currently in use, including onshore and offshore wind, solar, battery storage, synchronous condenser, biomass, and hydro.

When advising on these projects, we put together a full-service team in which our rural specialists are joined by experts from across the wider firm. That might be our market-leading Clean Energy team, Infrastructure, Planning, Regulatory, Corporate, or others.

This combination of detailed knowledge and commercial insight means we that we can guide you on all aspects of the project from beginning to end, including specialist issues such as habitat management schemes, reinstatement obligations and the interaction of carbon credits with renewables developments.

Our combined expertise includes:

Option and lease negotiations
Completing the due diligence process
Variations to existing agreements to account for the re-powering or expansion of existing projects
Providing guidance on the interaction of a renewables development with pre-existing farming and forestry businesses
Resolution of disputes
Procurement
Funders’ due diligence
Environmental and planning issues
Regulatory and aviation issues
Mergers and acquisitions
Structuring and re-structuring of projects

Meet our key contacts

Petra Grunenberg

Partner and Head of Rural Property and Business

Contact by email

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RenewablesRecent years have seen a resurgence of the demand on rural land for renewable energy projects. Our agricultural law specialists collaborate with experts from other teams around the firm to provide a full service for developers and landowners.

Our combined expertise includes:

Petra Grunenberg

Meet our full team

Kathryn Argo

Vicky Christie

Emma De Sailly

Rebecca Devine

Gillian Gibbons

Aileen Gordon

Emma Hendrie

Elaine Hunter

Hamish Lean

Katie McNab

John Morrison

Sophie Philip-Davidson

Scarlett Retallack

Alison Rochester

Sarah Shepherd

Matthew Smith

John Townsend

Lauren White

Petra Grunenberg

Petra Grunenberg

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Renewables
Recent years have seen a resurgence of the demand on rural land for renewable energy projects. Our agricultural law specialists collaborate with experts from other teams around the firm to provide a full service for developers and landowners.