WWW.LEXPERT.CA
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2018
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LEXPERT 9
Buckingham, Janice Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP
(403) 260-7006 jbuckingham@osler.com
Ms. Buckingham chairs the Oil & Gas Practice at Osler. Her practice focuses
on the joint development, acquisition, and divestiture of complex conven-
tional and unconventional oil, gas, oilsands, LNG, and offshore exploration,
development, production, midstream, transportation, and storage projects
and investments across Canada, and on all aspects of energy-related con-
tractual interpretation issues.
Buchinski, Marie H. Bennett Jones LLP
(403) 298-8136 buchinskim@bennettjones.com
Ms. Buchinski is a partner in the firms Energy, Environmental and Aboriginal
Practice Groups. Her practice focuses primarily on energy regulatory, compli-
ance and Aboriginal law matters. She has significant experience with respect
to provincially and federally regulated energy developments, and regulatory
and environmental matters in relation to those developments.
Brown, Darryl J. Gowling WLG
(416) 369-4581 darryl.brown@gowlingwlg.com
Mr. Brown's practice is concentrated in infrastructure, construction law and
real estate. He is a member and past chair of Gowling WLG's Canada-wide
Infrastructure Group and an active member of the firm's Nuclear Group.
Representing sponsors, developers, operators and design-builders, he drafts
and negotiates project agreements, construction contracts, operating agree-
ments and other contracts.
Bright, Denise D. Bennett Jones LLP
(403) 298-4468 brightd@bennettjones.com
Ms. Bright is a corporate partner in the firm's Calgary office. Her practice
is focused on secured and unsecured corporate debt and project finance,
where she acts for a variety of public and private companies, partnerships,
trusts and private equity vehicles in regards to their debt requirements
and restructurings.
Brennan, Patrick J. Bennett Jones LLP
(403) 298-3433 brennanp@bennettjones.com
Mr. Brennan leads the Banking & Secured Transactions Group. He acts in
banking and debt financings, asset-based financing and leasing, personal
property security, debt restructuring, aircraft acquisition, disposition, leasing
and financing and commercial transactions, with a focus on oil & gas, avia-
tion, manufacturing and financial sectors.
Braul, Waldemar Gowling WLG
(403) 298-1039 wally.braul@gowlingwlg.com
Mr. Braul is one of Western Canada's most highly regarded energy,
Indigenous law and environmental lawyers. He advises and litigates on
projects including oil & gas production, pipelines, LNG, oil terminals, marine
shipping, shale gas fracking, water, contaminated sites, mines, Fisheries Act
prosecutions and Indigenous law issues. He also holds a master's degree
in urban and regional planning.
LEXPERT-RANKED LAWYERS
(REP). Proposals approved in Round One total-
ling 600 megawatts of wind generation came in
at $37 per megawatt hour, a record for lowest re-
newable electricity pricing. Alberta's cost of new
generation has been about half what Ontario
consumers pay, says Vegh, though he adds that's
in part due to improvements in technology and
lower costs for solar and wind build-out.
If there is a commonality between the provinces'
regulatory environments, it's that all of them are,
to varying degrees, lagging behind innovations in
storage, distribution and smart technologies de-
signed to reduce electrical consumption.
"e new interesting area of energy develop-
ment is distributed energy resources," says To-
ronto lawyer Ian Mondrow, who leads Gowling
WLG's energy regulation and policy practice.
Distributed energy resources (DERs) produce
controllable electrical loads directly connected
to local distribution systems. Micro turbines,
rooop solar and small sewage gas or natural gas
electrical generators are a few examples of DERs
that can supply power to local buildings or neigh-
bourhoods and, if needed, feed power back into a
centralized grid for additional revenue or credits.
Even a parked electric car could be considered a
DER, as its batteries can store electricity that can
be pumped back into a home should it need it.
"Increasingly," says Mondrow, "policymakers
are looking at smaller-scale distributed energy re-
sources. ey are closer to where the energy is go-
ing to be used. ey are more modular; they can
come in with smaller increments, so you don't
have to build a huge nuclear or hydro plant that
costs billions of dollars." Aside from being more
environmentally friendly than conventional
large-scale electrical generation, "they are much
more dispersed so the grids are more resilient,"
Mondrow continues. "If you have a big transmis-
sion line running across a province and there is
a huge storm that knocks out the transmission
line, that's a problem. So you have to build redun-
dant circuits and that is really expensive. And
there is a question whether those assets will even
be utilized in the future. ey have 60 or more
years of life." But technology could render those
expensive elements of a provincial grid obsolete.
Yet, especially in provinces such as Manitoba,
Québec and Saskatchewan with monopolistic
Crown-owned electrical generation and distribu-
tion systems, "One of the biggest barriers to dis-
tributed energy resources is whether a jurisdiction
allows a generator to sell directly to customers or
not," explains Mondrow. "In those jurisdictions
where there isn't a competitive market like Ontar-
io or Alberta, you can't sell, generally, directly to
an end user [only to a provincially owned utility].
at's a barrier. It constrains the extent to which
