Sharing Construction Risks: What You Need To Know

Keywords: wind energy industry, design and construction contracts, wind farm contracts

Taking a proactive approach during negotiations can increase efficiency in the contracting process and, ultimately, in the development of a wind farm.

Despite recent economic, technical and regulatory challenges, the wind energy industry in the United States has grown tremendously over the past decade. However, even with this growth, and the accumulation of much experience, one frequent hurdle to launching new projects quickly is the lengthy and inefficient negotiation of design and construction contracts.

Parties to wind farm construction contracts often begin negotiations after design and/or construction work is already under way, leaving all parties in a difficult negotiating position. As a result, negotiations may produce ad hoc documents that are inappropriate for the particular project. In addition, contracts end up bearing little similarity from project to project, which