ENERGY TRANSITION AND RENEWABLE INFRASTRUCTURE DISPUTES
CD: From an economic and market design perspective, what structural factors are driving the recent increase in disputes across renewable and energy transition infrastructure projects?
Bodell: The energy transition in the US has faced a partial roadblock due to rescinded policy promises and a change in federal focus back to fossil fuels. This renewed focus on fossil fuels is both reinforced and offset by huge demand growth tied to data centres. Grid interconnection queues have ballooned for both generation and large load, encouraging whichever generation technology can come to market fastest. We are seeing disputes emerge from the collision of clean energy projects already underway, rising project costs, new market needs and a truncated set of federal incentives. Long-dated power purchase agreements written under one set of market assumptions are being stress-tested against fundamentally different conditions, producing a structural recipe for commercial conflict. Many developers, capital investors and counterparties are revisiting the fundamental economics of projects already underway, and making economic calculations about who has what obligations and whether it makes sense for a project to proceed.
CD: How are you seeing energy transition disputes change as governments simultaneously incentivise and regulate renewable projects, especially when policies shift or reverse?
Dunn: Policy simultaneity is one of the most analytically interesting challenges in this space. Governments are effectively operating as both market-maker and regulator, which creates inherent tension. The incentive structures created by former policies drove an enormous wave of capital into projects, many of which were underwritten on the assumption of policy continuity. Now, with ongoing uncertainty, we are seeing a significant number of commercial disputes playing out through in-court restructuring activity.
Apr-Jun 2026 issue
Province, LLC
StoneTurn