Energy Law

Attorneys focused on commercial energy and infrastructure projects

When your energy projects are met with regulatory and siting obstacles, our attorneys help achieve your objectives through practical and efficient solutions that involve infrastructure siting, legislative affairs, commercial transactions, and more.

For over half a century, DRM energy attorneys have helped achieve clients’ objectives in commercial energy transactions, infrastructure siting projects, governmental affairs, and administrative and judicial litigation. Beyond legal ingenuity and a deep bench of talent, DRM’s success and reputation can be attributed to its sustained engagement in the formation of energy policies in Vermont and the region, working directly through clients and indirectly through trade associations, educational institutions, and community organizing.

DRM has significant experience before the Vermont Public Utility Commission, ranging from successfully settling complex issues of first impression to litigating cases to successful outcomes. We are thoroughly knowledgeable in emerging regulatory and power markets issues in Vermont, New Hampshire, and regionally, and we are actively involved in key legislative and regulatory initiatives that shape project development and financing as well as energy policy in Vermont and New Hampshire.

Our highly experienced team can guide you through:

• Energy siting for transmission and generation facilities
• Commercial energy transactions
• Investor diligence
• Energy storage and grid modernization
• Renewable energy generation
• Regulatory compliance
• Brownfield development
• Eminent domain
• Energy efficiency measures

Recent Vermont & New Hampshire Energy Law Victories

• Secured regulatory approvals and real estate rights for Vermont’s largest solar facility—the 20 MW Coolidge Solar Project in Ludlow—as well as for numerous other solar and energy storage projects of various scales, including facilities on landfills and brownfield sites.
• Represented Vermont utility in the purchase of fourteen hydroelectric facilities in Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and Massachusetts, including transfer of licenses through the Federal Regulatory Energy Commission.
• Assisted Vermont utility with negotiating a long-term power purchase agreement for the output associated with a fleet of hydroelectric facilities located in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts, and secured regulatory approval of the transaction from the Vermont Public Utility Commission.
• Negotiated key agreements with the State of Vermont to secure and transfer real estate rights for a conservation area necessary to support conditions in certificate of public good for Georgia Mountain Community Wind facility.