Danny Lee

Burges Salmon has recently advised Speyside Renewable Energy Partnership, the owner of a 15MWe biomass combined heat and power (CHP) plant near Craigellachie, Moray, on its sale to a subsidiary of Greencoat Renewable Income LP, Greencoat’s new closed-ended private markets fund.

The Speyside plant has the capacity to generate enough renewable electricity to power 20,000 homes and when the 10MWth of heat supplied to the Macallan Distillery, and the natural gas this displaces is taken into account, represents a potential carbon saving equivalent to 42,000 tonnes of CO2 per annum, equivalent to taking 18,000 cars off the road per year.

This transaction is the second large scale biomass with CHP disposal that Burges Salmon has advised on in nine months. In June 2021 Burges Salmon advised Cramlington Renewable Energy Developments Limited, the owner of the 28MWe biomass CHP plant in Cramlington, Northumberland – and the sister project to the Speyside biomass CHP project – on its sale to JLEN Environmental Assets Group Limited. Similar to the Speyside plant, the Cramlington plant has the capacity to power in excess of 50,000 homes, reducing greenhouse gas emissions by the equivalent of taking 25,000 cars off the road per year and supplies renewable electricity and heat to its neighbours at Cramlington, Aesica Pharmaceuticals and Merck Sharpe & Dohme.

The Burges Salmon team advising on the deal was led by director Amy McVey and head of corporate restructuring and insolvency, Andrew Eaton, with support from Edinburgh-based partner Danny Lee (corporate), Richard Adams (partner, construction and engineering), Fay Shearer and Thomas Mark Bell (senior associates, real estate), Paul Clark (consultant, real associate), Euan Bremner (partner, real estate) and Isobel Annan (solicitor), Alec Whiter (director) and Nick Churchward (partner) (all from the energy projects team).

Andrew Dixon, independent director at SREP and CRED at the time of their sales, comments: “We are very grateful to the Burges Salmon team for providing us with comprehensive specialist advice and helping us navigate a series of complex transactions and seamlessly bring them to a successful and timely conclusion.”