Real Estate Energy

We are one of the few London-headquartered real estate groups to have a dedicated real estate energy team. With a market-leading energy practice, we provide advice from an informed industry perspective. Our client base is diverse. From major energy companies such as National Grid and SSE and landowners such as Scottish Water to a wide range of developers and investors in the renewable sector such as Aviva and Luxcara.

For developers, key issues include ensuring that the relevant sites and all access/easement routes are properly secured before substantial investment is made in the consenting and development process. This includes not only the necessary cable easements, but also the appropriate access rights needed for commissioning, operation and decommissioning of the relevant facility.

From an investor’s point of view, areas of particular concern are ensuring proper compliance with planning conditions and making sure that operational sites have all the relevant rights they need.

In relation to utility companies, a particular focus on the consenting and consultation strategies is needed to ensure that rights are not just secured in isolation and adopt the spirit of the DECC directives, where reasonable efforts to secure rights voluntarily have to be demonstrated to justify the need for compulsory purchase powers.

We are pleased to provide real estate advice to some of the most dynamic players in the energy market including National Grid, Hargreaves, SSE, SGN, Aviva Investors, EON – renewables, Brookfield Global Renewable Energy Advisor, Repsol, EDF, EDF Energy Renewables, Element Power, Wirsol Energy Limited, Renewable Energy Partnerships Limited, Balfour Beatty Infrastructure Fund, Luxcara, Statkraft, Alpha Real Capital LLP, BG Group, ConocoPhillips, Talisman, Statoil, Premier Oil, Enquest and Octopus Investments Limited. Our client base also covers oil and gas majors, landowners, developer-operators and funders.

We are helping clients deliver on flagship projects across the whole spectrum of the energy sector - renewables (including solar, onshore- and offshore-wind), oil and gas, networks, conventional power generation, energy centres (such as Fulham Wharf and Nine Elms), biomass asset protection, third party objection, surplus land re-development and Waste to Energy.

We also regularly act for funders of renewable projects so we are very familiar with what they are looking for in order to be able to finance the project and therefore can pre-empt issues when acting on the acquisition aspects for our clients.