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Ben Brown

Partner

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Languages: Spanish

Ben is a partner in the international energy team. 

He leads and supports in the regulatory and commercial aspects of numerous energy and infrastructure projects across a range of asset classes and technologies, prominently in renewable and low carbon energy. Ben has acted on some of the largest and most complex energy projects in the UK and internationally, for some of the biggest companies in the world.

His experience spans wind, solar, nuclear, battery storage, biofuels, hydrogen, geothermal, CHP, CCGT, LNG, biomass, heat (ESCOs), networks, and other technologies and asset classes. Ben has acted for the full range of stakeholders in the industry, from governments, utilities, networks, developers, funds, banks, financial institutions, offtakers, suppliers, energy services providers, and energy end users.

He has worked on projects and on renewable programmes in many jurisdictions including:

  • in Europe: the UK, Ireland, Finland, Sweden, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Germany, France, Belgium, Poland, the Netherlands, and Lithuania
  • in the Middle East and North Africa: Tunisia, Iraq, Palestine, Jordan, Pakistan, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Oman
  • in the Far East: the Philippines, Bangladesh, Singapore, Taiwan, Australia, and New Zealand
  • in Latin America: Brazil, St Kitts and Nevis, Colombia, and Chile
  • in Africa: Madagascar, Ethiopia, the Gambia, Ghana, Cameroon, St Helena, Tanzania, and Senegal

Ben regularly presents on PPAs, energy transition and low carbon matters, for instance:

  • Article on Decarbonisation in TMT Telescope, April 2022
  • Panelist speaker at Global Industrials Conference, 17 March 2022, hosted by Eversheds
  • Panelist speaker at NYC Climate Week: Big tech / big power – how the technology industry is tackling climate change challenges”, 22 September 2021
  • Speaker at “UK Digital Energy Solutions” event, part of the Canadian High Commission’s Canadian Technology Accelerator program, 8 March 2022
  • Panelist speaking on international renewable PPAs, in Tunis, at Renpower Maghreb Investors 2019 – The Renewable Energy, Power Infrastructure & Energy Efficiency Conference

His core focus is on offtake/PPAs, subsidy regimes, regulatory matters, grid and other commercial aspects of energy projects. His experience includes advising on:

  • power purchase agreements (including corporate PPAs) and trading arrangements
  • green power procurement and Net Zero programmes for large corporate & industrial clients
  • carbon offsetting and voluntary emission reduction credit trading (VERs, CERs, ERPAs)
  • grid connections (including shared connections, interconnectors, HV transmission connections, and offshore transmission)
  • renewables support regimes (such as contracts for difference (CfDs), green gas scheme (GGS), renewable transport fuel obligation (RTFO), and now closed schemes such as renewables obligation (RO), feed-in tariffs (FITs), and renewable heat incentives (RHI))
  • renewable certificates (such as guarantees of origin (REGOs/GOOs) and renewable energy certificates (RECs/IRECs)
  • nuclear support regimes (such as CFD and the regulated asset base (RAB) model)
  • fuel supply and offtake contracts (including hydrogen, biomethane, biofuels, recovered carbon products, biomass, natural gas)
  • disputes and audits with the regulator (Ofgem), including acting on numerous Ofgem RO audits
  • supplier obligations (including under FIT, RO, ECO, WDH, Green Deal, Supply License Conditions, etc)
  • electricity act licensing and exemptions, including third party access
  • electricity charging and balancing regimes (eg, BSC), and disputes relating to charging, as well as advising on innovative charging arrangements/changes
  • grid industry documents (eg, the connections and use of system code (CUSC), and balancing settlement code (BSC))
  • ancillary and balancing services (such as capacity market (CM), frequency response (FFR), short term operating reserve (STOR), dymanic containment (DC), and other reserve services)
  • nuclear regulations (including nuclear liability channelling and international treaties, site licensing and ONR compliance, funded decommissioning programmes (FDPs), and radioactive waste management and transport regulations)
  • battery regulations (eg, end of life liabilities for collection and recycling)
  • battery optimisation services contracts, and associated trading arrangements, with most of the major optimisers/aggregators
  • flexible energy supply arrangements (including sleeving and exempt supplies)
  • connection and supply arrangements for high demand users (including many prominent datacentre providers)
  • radar mitigation services contracts and wake loss agreements (for offshore wind)
  • other commercial, licensing, license exemptions and regulatory matters

Ben has also worked on a number of international independent power plant (IPP) projects, acting for sponsors, developers, utilities and governments, including advising on any applicable tariffs/subsidy schemes for renewables, regulatory issues, and the completion of power purchase agreements and concession agreements.

He has assisted in setting up other emerging structures such as corporate PPAs (including net metering, wheeling, sleeving, virtual and private wire arrangements), both in the UK and internationally.

Ben Brown

Partner

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