Throughout her many years of experience on energy projects, Michelle has advised clients on due diligence, permitting, siting and contractual agreements for energy generation projects, both traditional and alternative energy, as well as carbon emissions tracking and reporting. She stays informed of energy policy changes and is a frequent author and speaker on energy issues.
Michelle has extensive experience siting and developing utility and commercial scale energy generation projects. Her connections with various professionals can help clients meet the needs for their projects. She also assists clients with navigating the complex political, administrative, and regulatory issues at the local, state and federal level. Below is a summary of some of Michelle’s energy engagements.
Representative Experience:
- Negotiates and prepares various commercial contracts for renewable energy projects including power purchase agreements, EPC agreements, interconnection agreements, leases and supply agreements with vendors.
- Represents clients in the power plant and transmission line siting process regulated by the Arizona Corporation Commission.
- Negotiates utility interconnection and renewable energy credit agreements with electric utilities.
- Advises utilities, offtakers, independent power producers, investors and developers with contract procurement and development of commercial- and utility-scale renewable energy projects in Arizona, California and Nevada, including power purchase agreements, engineering, procurement and construction agreements, utility interconnection agreements, environmental due diligence, siting and permitting.
- Provides clients with strategic considerations for renewable energy projects and assists with the identification of strategic partners for the development of their projects.
- Provides investors and developers with regulatory opinions regarding multi-state utility regulation for third-party owned energy generation projects.
- Assisting Fortune 50 technology company with all environmental permitting and power siting for high-tech facilities in Southwest region.
- Represented Fortune 50 manufacturer with the drafting and negotiation of its engineering, procurement and construction template agreements for its solar projects nationally.
- Assisted Fortune 50 manufacturer with the procurement of renewable energy generation for its industrial complex, including environmental due diligence and permitting, negotiation of power purchase agreement, and negotiation on energy procurement and interconnection agreements with energy developer and utility.
- Assisting Fortune 15 technology company with all environmental permitting and renewable energy procurement for its industrial facilities in Nevada and Arizona.
- Advised Tribal client regarding a pumped storage project including environmental, natural resource and permitting due diligence, strategic considerations for regulatory compliance and identification of strategic partners to assist with development of the project.
- Assists a waste-to-energy technology company with the environmental due diligence and permitting requirements for facilities located in Arizona, California and Nevada.
- Assisted Fortune 100 food manufacturer with drafting a Request for Proposal (“RFP”) for solar service providers and reviewing RFP responses; negotiated interconnection and renewable energy credit agreements with the electric utility; provided federal/state/local permitting advice; drafted and negotiated a power purchase agreement and solar lease site; and oversaw the financial structuring and tax-related advice on the transaction.
- Provided a Fortune 100 manufacturer with a template power purchase agreement to use as the company’s standard agreement for installation of solar projects at its national facilities. In doing so, helped the client meet its goal of significantly streamlining its legal documents and legal contract processes.
