Pierre Plante worked for five years as a trader in the US on the floors of major energy market makers. This hands-on experience gave him an intimate knowledge of the tariffs regulating the markets of:
- The ISO and RTOs of New York (NYISO), New England (NE-ISO), Mid Atlantic (PJM) and the Midwest (MISO);
- Quebec, Ontario (IESO) and the Atlantic Provinces markets in Canada
His clients are involved in various areas of the energy sector, and include equipment manufacturers, turbine manufacturers, financial institutions, hedge funds, governments, independent producers, and public utilities.
His expertise encompasses all energy generation methods: thermal, nuclear, hydroelectric, wind, biogas and biomass. He is involved in the firm's multidisciplinary teams taking infrastructure projects from project development to marketing, including project finance, sustainable land-use and environmental approvals.
His specialisation provides clients expertise in the following areas:
Regulatory
- Representation before regulatory agencies or administrative tribunals with jurisdiction over energy distribution and transmission
- Establishment of transmission and distribution tariffs
- Reliability of transmission networks
- Regulations governing regional transmission organizations (RTO) and independent system operators (ISO)
- Manipulation and abuse of dominant position questions and competition law issues (anti-trust)
- Complaints, disputes, reviews, appeals and judicial review of board decisions
Marketing and Negotiation
- Permitting and marketing licenses
- Application and interpretation of the Open Access Transmission Tariffs (OATT) dispute resolution process (Eastern North America) Negotiation of connection and transmission service agreements
- Financial hedging and derivative instruments
- Water management and storage agreements for generation purposes
Transactions
- Master agreements: International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) and Edison Electric Institute (EEI)
- Negotiation of long-term purchase and sale agreements
- Registration and monetization of environmental attributes related to power production
- Project acquisitions and financing
Climate change and revenue generation
- Legal support for the preparation of Project Design Documents (PDD)
- Negotiation and strategic counsel for planning, building and implementation of clean development mechanism (CDM) projects under the Kyoto Protocol (methane capture, renewable energy, afforestation and reforestation) as well as for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD) projects
- Strategic counsel for owners of assets capable of emissions reduction
- Negotiation, drafting and review of contracts related to carbon credits, Certified Emission Reduction (CER) or Voluntary Emission Reduction (VER) service agreements, carbon credit purchase/sale agreements (ERPA, VERPA)
This regulatory, commercial and transactional expertise provides our clients with a comprehensive and strategic viewpoint that takes into account the needs, risk profiles and sustainability of benefits sought by the counterparties.
Representative Experience
Pierre has appeared before the Régie de l'énergie du Québec pertaining to the application of the Open Access Transmission Tariff of Hydro-Québec. The questions at stake represent close to $3 billion dollars for our client. The points in dispute involve market access, transmission as well as the notions of "designation of resources", the obligations associated with Québec's "Heritage Pool", the nature of a "trading hub", and the calculation of available transmission capacity (ATC) on transmission lines.
He has also advised on a Water Management Agreement for the coordination of power production . He has also been involved in the negotiation for the sale of 300MW (2.19 TWh/US$100 million per year for 3 years) to the New York markets, flowing through Québec.
At the regulatory level, Pierre has reviewed Hydro-Québec TransÉnergie compliance with the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Order 890; evaluated a proposed $250 million investment by HQT (HQT requesting that the costs be rolled into the HQT tariff); analysed the impact of the proposed suspension of deliveries from the TransCanada Bécancourt gas plant by HQ Distribution; and reviewed the reliability rules proposed by HQT in light of competition and free access rules.