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Cornerstone Research has a deep understanding of the complex issues surrounding electricity and energy disputes. Our team of experienced professionals and experts leverage advanced analytical techniques to deliver data-driven analyses related to electricity issues that arise in disputes, commercial litigation, and regulatory enforcement matters.
Our industry and academic experts have a proven track record of testifying in court and before regulatory bodies. We deliver insights that help our clients navigate complex disputes and make informed decisions in a wide range of energy and electricity matters, including in renewable generation and transmission project development, co-location of data centers with nuclear plants, and power purchase agreement (PPA) negotiations. This includes experience opining on industry practices and the accepted understanding of industry terms. Our experts also have experience investigating possible market manipulation, modeling wholesale electricity markets, analyzing the impact of solar and wind on electricity markets, and evaluating valuation disputes.

Select Experience

  • Assessing contractual terms and obligations to procure electricity for industrial-scale Bitcoin mining.
  • Calculating Bitcoin mining damages due to idle mining machines when electricity is sold back to the grid.
  • Evaluating economic and market design factors concerning the co-location of data centers with electricity generation.
  • Analyzing a solar energy company’s solvency, financial position, and access to capital markets independent from a pending M&A transaction.
  • Assessing the fair market value for large-scale wind energy facilities, including tax issues.
  • Analyzing economic risks of a power plant leasing transaction in a tax litigation.
  • Modeling the future cash flows associated with the tax expenses for a coal power plant in Texas impacted by Winter Storm Uri.
  • Analyzing the impact of increased competition from wind generation on the value of a natural gas power plant.
  • Evaluating valuation analysis conducted in support of a fairness opinion for a tender offer involving a major U.S. power plant operator.
  • Analyzing the value derived from nuclear power support legislation for an electric utility company.
  • Assessing the impact of wildfire risk from transmission sparks on utility value.
  • Analyzing the risk/return profile for a series of PPA and hedging agreements that incurred losses during Winter Storm Uri in Texas.
  • Analyzing the pricing and economic dispatch provisions of an independent power project’s PPA in a contract dispute, including calculating damages.
  • Quantifying damages in the context of a dispute around an outage allegedly caused by construction defects in a natural gas power plant.
  • Quantifying damages in the context of a dispute around construction delays in a natural gas power plant.
  • Analyzing reasonable and but-for prices, controlling for reasonable PPA price given grid bottlenecks, outages, reserves, and ancillary services.
  • Analyzing the impact of natural gas prices on electricity prices considering the nontrivial portion of U.S. natural gas used for electricity generation.
  • Isolating company- and contract-specific impacts from changing cost dynamics of clean energy technologies, including solar, wind, and energy storage such as batteries.
  • Modeling market conditions in CAISO, ERCOT, PJM, ISO-NE, and other markets.
  • Evaluating a proposed merger in the electric power industry, including developing a simulation model to estimate the competitive effects of the merger under different divestiture, load, and transmission scenarios.
  • Examining contract dispute claims, including:
    • Assessing weather and outage events, including calculating damages scenarios using alternate production and ERCOT pricing assumptions during Winter Storm Uri.
    • Analyzing and quantifying potential mitigation actions in PJM’s capacity markets in the context of damages calculations.
    • Building a but-for model of energy and capacity revenues, including fixed and variable costs, in the context of a contractual dispute related to the construction of a natural gas plant.
  • Analyzing allegations of market manipulation, including:
    • Addressing allegations of bid rigging, collusion, and abuse of dominance in electricity and associated natural gas trading.
    • Investigating allegations of false reporting and price manipulation in real time, day ahead, futures, swaps, and options markets, including assessing allegations of using physical trading to impact prices.
    • Assessing allegations of manipulation in the day-ahead market using losses on virtual trades to benefit futures or other market positions.
  • Analyzing class certification issues related to alleged breach of contract for retail electricity rates.
  • Assessing reasonable and comparable rates in the New York retail market for fixed, indexed, and variable rate contracts for energy service companies (ESCOs).
  • Assessing the expected value of rate freeze exceptions in retail markets.
  • Evaluating the impact of carbon disclosure mandates on emissions and financial operating performance.
  • Assessing how consumers respond to solar subsidies that change over time.
  • Assessing how uncertainty surrounding policy enforcement affects power plant financing, retirement, and upgrade decisions.

Selected Professionals

Our staff consultants contribute expertise in economics, finance, accounting, and marketing, as well as business acumen, familiarity with the litigation process, and a commitment to provide outstanding support.