Team size: 50

How has the increasing consciousness of climate change and sustainability affected your company and the team’s priorities?

ESB is making a stand for Ireland’s future, powered by clean and sustainable electricity. To protect our customers and the economy of Ireland, we are committed to leading the transition to a reliable, affordable, and low-carbon energy future by maintaining security and affordability of energy. Investing and innovating across our business to make this a reality, our strategy is developing new sources of renewable, flexible, and low-carbon backup generation. We are developing customer led solutions that will empower everyone in society to live cleaner with more sustainably powered electricity by reinforcing and enhancing our network to accommodate unprecedented volumes of distributed energy resources.

The launch of our Brighter Future Strategy in 2017 highlights the importance of the societal dialogue around the climate crisis. ESB is already on a journey to a net zero carbon future with an ambitious carbon target and full reporting of our direct and indirect carbon emissions. Our in-house legal team, with expertise in various areas of law such as corporate and commercial law, property law, regulatory and competition law, planning and environmental law, employment law, and litigation, plays a pivotal role in enabling our clients across the business to achieve their strategic imperatives.

What are the most significant cases and/or transactions that your legal team has recently been involved in?

In 2021, our in-house legal team played a key role in the establishment of Future Energy Ireland, a joint venture between ESB and Coillte Teoranta, which aims to deliver €1.5bn in renewable energy projects in Ireland. This project has the potential to generate up to one gigawatt of onshore wind energy by 2030. The development of the joint venture was supported by ESB’s in-house solicitors specialising in different areas of law. This engagement was an example of how ESB’s in-house team members not only bring the advantage of their long experience in the energy sector to bear on new projects but also maintain their awareness of new technologies and the changing regulatory environment that we work in. It was also a superb example of the cooperative approach that we adopt in the delivery of legal advice and transactional support at ESB. Our legal team liaised with ESB’s Generation and Trading Business unit and were involved in all stages of the project, from initial project discussions, through property due diligence, a merger filing with the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, and commercial negotiations, all ultimately leading to the successful formation of the joint venture company.