Michael W.E. Didriksen

Michael W.E. Didriksen

Mr. Didriksen is a partner in the firm's US Energy and Utilities Practice Group. He represents major energy industry companies and other large corporate clients, primarily on large-scale transactional matters. His experience includes structuring transactions for both regulated and unregulated companies in the electric power and gas industries. This has included purchases and sales of numerous power plants (including natural gas, nuclear, coal, wind and hydro-electric facilities), power project development transactions (including large-scale utility wind farms, natural gas-fired cogeneration plants and merchant transmission lines), acquisitions and sales of energy assets through bankruptcy-driven auctions, negotiation of "structured" wholesale and retail power contracts (including tolling agreements, long-term power purchase contracts and standard offer load contracts) and matters involving wholesale and retail power trading and marketing. Mr. Didriksen also works with the firm's Corporate Department on matters that have included mergers and acquisitions (M&A), cash tender offers and initial public offerings.

Selected Activities

· Speaker, Wind Power Finance & Investment Summit 2008

Representative Matters

· Counsel to Optim Energy, LLC in the development and construction of Cedar Bayou Unit 4, a 550 MW gas-fired combined cycle, power plant jointly owned with NRG (currently under construction);

· Counsel to Puget Sound Energy, Inc. in its $120 million acquisition of the 275 MW Goldendale Energy Center from Calpine Corporation, via Calpine's bankruptcy process;

· Counsel to Foster Wheeler, in connection with its supply of boiler island equipment to the proposed Longview Project, a 695 MW supercritical pulverized coal-fired power plant;

· Counsel to Consumers Energy in its sale of the 798 MW Palisades Nuclear Power Plant to a subsidiary of Entergy Corporation;

· Counsel to General Electric in connection with the proposed Linden VFT merchant transmission facility, the first successful auction of merchant transmission capacity in the United States, which will provide 300 MW of new transmission capacity into New York City;

· Counsel to Puget Sound Energy, Inc. in its acquisition, development and construction of the Hopkins Ridge Wind Project, a 150 MW wind powered electric generating facility located in Columbia County, Washington;

· Counsel to Puget Sound Energy, Inc. in its acquisition, development and construction of the Wild Horse Wind Project, a 228 MW wind powered electric generating facility located in Kittitas County, Washington;

· Counsel to Puget Sound Energy, Inc., in its acquisition of a 49.85 percent undivided interest in the 249 MW Frederickson combined cycle gas-fired plant from a subsidiary of EPCOR Utilities, Inc.;

· Counsel to Enron North America Corp. in the purchase of a 40 percent interest in Sithe's 1,040 MW gas-fired Independence cogeneration facility in Oswego, New York;

· Counsel to East Coast Power, now a subsidiary of General Electric, in the expansion of a 715 MW cogeneration facility located in Linden, New Jersey which added an approximately 180 MW truncated combined cycle power plant to the existing facility;

· Counsel to United American Energy Corp. in connection with its acquisition of the Mecklenburg coal-fired power plant ; and

· Counsel to CMP Group in its $847 million sale of 1,185 MWs of fossil and hydro generation to FPL Group, Inc.