Elizabeth C. Sluder

Sluder has become an almost omnipresent force on the renewable energy front with representing clients in construction and term debt financings, tax equity investments and negotiating supply agreements, construction contracts and offtake arrangements.

Prior to filing for bankruptcy in 2016, her client SunEdison Inc. was one of the largest global renewable energy developers. Sluder led the Morrison & Foerster team, reviewing and advising the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors of SunEdison on all of its asset sales, evaluating auction bids and advising on recourse options.

“I had never worked on a bankruptcy before,” Sluder said. “It showed me and Morrison and Foerster as a whole that we really did a lot of value to the renewable energy industry.”

“It was an odd set of circumstances for a bankruptcy,” she said. “Morrison could quantify the amount of value is added to those sales. In some instances we were able to identify alternative buyers that increased the sales price that had been originally proposed.”

For Sluder, the thing the SunEdison work “rocked her boat” the most was that it put everything she’s learned in her career into play in one matter.

“It gave everyone in counsel the chance to show off and prove that renewable energy is good for the economy,” she said. “There’s a lot of interest in those assets, which proved to be valuable.”

Another set of deals that Sluder considers as equally prestigious as SunEdison was representing BayWa r.e. Wind LLC in the sale of the 80-megawatt Beethoven wind project to NorthWestern Energy, the sale of an operating wind project in Riverside County to Greenbacker Wind, the sale of renewable energy credits to a large utility and negotiating “safe harbor” turbine supply agreements.

“People sell in the early or late stage, but in the sale of a wind project, with Greenbacker Wind, you have to jump through a lot more hurdles,” she said.

The general difference of mergers and acquisitions in the renewable space, compared to the corporate space, is dealing with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the tax incentives that drive the industry.

“When buying and selling at various stages, you don’t want to run afoul of the tax rules,” Sluder said.

— Matthew Sanderson