Keith Newman

• Energy

• Energy (traditional and renewables)
• Grid connection
• Energy project development
• Power Purchase Agreements and Electricity markets
• Climate law and carbon reduction / offsetting projects

Education

• National University of Ireland, Galway, B. Comm
• National University of Ireland, Galway, LLB
• Trinity College, Dublin, LLM

Professional Memberships

• The Law Society of Ireland

• Advising a large technology company on their European corporate power purchase agreements, including transactions relating to projects in Ireland, Denmark and Spain. Keith also advised on in excess of 1.5GW of corporate power purchase agreements across the US.

• Advised a hyper-scaler on a number of their data centre developments across Europe, including but not limited to the acquisition of prospective data centre sites and the ongoing planning and grid connection development of such sites, as well all aspects of its design construction contracts. Keith is actively advising this hyperscaler on aspects of its Irish and European data centre operations.

• Advising a large international organisation on European carbon insetting projects and their overall efforts to reduce its carbon emissions.

• Advised Statkraft on the conditional forward sale agreement for Ireland’s largest solar park to Octopus Renewables Infrastructure Trust (ORIT). Ballymacarney solar park has a 199 MW, was developed and subsequently constructed by Statkraft Ireland and then separately sold to ORIT.

• Advised asset manager Impax on a joint venture with BNRG to develop and potentially acquire more than a gigawatt of solar projects in the US and Ireland. In Ireland, the partnership is progressing BNRG's existing development portfolio of over 600MW of solar projects.

• Advised Statkraft on the acquisition of over 400MW in onshore and solar renewable energy projects. These projects were acquired across three separate transactions, two of which were competitive auction processes. Keith’s role involved assisting with the negotiation and agreement of all key transaction documents, advising the client’s project management team throughout the process on all aspects of the acquisition and underlying assets.

• Acted for Norddeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale on the non-recourse project financing of a number of wind farm projects in Ireland including 91.2MW Meenbog wind farm, 61.6MW Tullahennel wind farm and battery storage project, 30MW Boolnagleragh wind farm, 33.6MW Knockalough wind farm, 45MW Slieve Callan wind farm and 40.1MW Meagheramore wind farm. Keith’s role involved advising the lenders on project agreement bankability issues, leading due diligence Q&A and preparing either a red flag report, or a detailed due diligence report. Keith also negotiated and finalised all direct agreements.

• Advised NTR on the acquisition, development and non-recourse project financing of several wind farm projects, including the development & project financing of Rathnacally 5MW, Teevurcher 9MW and Coollegrean 17.5MW wind farms. Keith advised on the negotiation and drafting of all construction, operational and market off-take project contracts, including direct agreements, collateral warranties and performance security, and dealt with due diligence questions from the lenders. Keith also advised NTR on the acquisition of the 19.2MW Ballycumber wind farm.