Andrew L. Kinde

My focus

I represent clients involved in the acquisition, development, operation, and financing of renewable energy projects. My practice focuses on the renewable energy tax credits generated by such projects. My work on these transactions includes drafting, reviewing, and negotiating various tax equity and loan documents and conducting the necessary due diligence to ensure transactions run smoothly and efficiently, as well as overall project management.

Before joining Nixon Peabody, I served as a law clerk in the Massachusetts Appeals Court for Associate Justice Peter Sacks. Before attending law school, I worked at multiple large developers in the solar industry, where I provided in-home consultation and project management services for residential and community solar customers.

Representative experience

• Solar facilities qualifying for the Inflation Reduction Act: represented the tax equity investor on five transactions. Each transaction was for the development of a utility-scale solar generation facility, with all five facilities having a generating capacity of at least 100 megawatts-ac (MWac) when fully constructed and operational. The five facilities will have a combined total generating capacity of 830 MWac and a combined fair market value of approximately $1.625 billion. The facilities are located across three states—one in Texas, one in Louisiana, and three in Arkansas. Four of the five facilities will qualify as energy community projects under the Inflation Reduction Act, helping to revitalize communities that have historically hosted oil, coal, and gas facilities while simultaneously facilitating a more rapid clean energy transition.
• 13 community solar portfolios across five states: represented the client in connection with the tax equity financing for a 48 MW community solar portfolio consisting of 13 projects located in New York, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Minnesota.
• Solar project in Nebraska: represented the tax equity investor, a regulated bank, in connection with an 81 MW solar project located in Nebraska, with a fair market value of approximately $163 million.
• 14 community solar portfolios across three states: represented the client in connection with the tax equity financing for a 68 MW community solar portfolio consisting of 14 projects located in New York, Maine, and Colorado.
• 25 community solar portfolios across five states: represented the client in connection with the tax equity financing for a 111 MW community solar portfolio consisting of 25 projects located in New York, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Illinois.
• Large solar project in Arizona: represented the tax equity investor, a regulated bank, in connection with a 100 MW solar project located in Arizona, with a fair market value of approximately $168 million.
• Renewable energy credit facility in Illinois: represented a bank client in connection with the tax equity financing of a 92MWdc photovoltaic solar energy facility located in Logan County, Illinois. The energy generated by the system is being sold pursuant to a hedge agreement with a 12-year term, and the renewable energy credits generated are being sold pursuant to three separate renewable energy credit agreements.
• Two solar projects in Massachusetts: represented the client in connection with the tax equity financing for a 9.5 MW combined solar and energy storage system portfolio, including two projects in Massachusetts.
• Distributed wind facility in California: represented the client in connection with the tax equity financing of a 5.6 MW distributed wind turbine-generating facility located in California.
• Solar project in Arizona: represented the tax equity investor, a regulated bank, in connection with a 150 MW solar project located in Arizona, with a fair market value of approximately $340 million.
• 12 solar projects across North Carolina: represented the client in connection with the tax equity financing for a 60 MW solar portfolio, including 12 projects located in North Carolina.
• Six solar projects across North and South Carolina: represented the client in connection with the tax equity financing for a 29 MW solar portfolio, including six projects located in North Carolina and South Carolina.

Looking ahead

I see increasing momentum for a full-scale transition away from fossil fuels, with racial, social, and energy justice emphasized as foundational aspects of such a transition. Electrification of all sectors of our economy will be critical to achieving this transition, which will entail energy storage technologies playing a central and increasingly bigger role at both the commercial and local community levels.

Insights

• “The Pathway to a Green New Deal: Synthesizing Transdisciplinary Literatures and Activist Frameworks to Achieve a Just Energy Transition,” 44 ENVIRONS ENVTL. L. & POL’Y J. 1 (2020), co-written with Shalanda H. Baker, Secretarial Advisor on Equity and Deputy Director for Energy Justice at the U.S. Department of Energy
• “Let’s Make a Green New Deal: An Analysis of State Carbon Taxes as a Foundational Piece of Climate Legislation in the United States,” 11 NE. U. L. REV. 474 (2019)
• “Energy Storage: To Be, or Not to Be . . . What, Exactly? That is the Real Question,” Northeastern University Law Review — Extra Legal, October 30, 2018