Sushma Maharaj
Sushma is a highly experienced commercial contracts lawyer advising clients in the energy industry on regulatory and market structures, on how current and future energy sector regulation impact them, and on how to frame their contractual arrangements so as to mitigate risks and liabilities within the regulatory regime that applies to them.
She advises on the full range of services arrangements including: concession agreements, connection agreements, supply contracts, operation and maintenance arrangements and asset optimisation services agreements, as well as power purchase agreements (including private wire arrangements and sleeved and synthetic PPAs), and other route to market agreements.
Her experience includes a nine month secondment to the Northern Ireland electricity regulator, OFREG; a three month secondment to British Energy and a seven month secondment to Smartest Energy.
Practice Area
Panel
- Contributing Author
Qualified Year
- Admitted to Roll of Solicitors 2001
Experience
- Shakespeare Martineau (2021 - Present)
- Lux Nova Partners (2019 - 2021)
- Squire Patton Boggs (2017 - 2019)
- SJ Berwin (which subsequently became KWM) (2012 - 2016)
- Greenberg Traurig Maher (2009 - 2012)
- DLA Piper (2007 - 2009)
- Denton Wilde Sapte (2006 - 2007)
- White & Case (2005 - 2005)
- Denton Wilde Sapte (2001 - 2005)
- Davies Arnold Cooper (2000 - 2001)
Qualifications
- Qualified Lawyers Transfer Test (QLTT) (2001)
- Qualifed Barrister following 12 months pupillage (2000)
- Bar Vocational Qualification (1999)
- Postgraduate Diploma in Law (1998)
Education
- London School of Economics (BSc Econ Government & Law) (1994)
6 Contributions by Sushma Maharaj
PRACTICE NOTES
A legal and commercial guide to CHP projects: financing models, heat and electricity supply, licensing and exemptions, network and energy centre contracts, competition risks, and net zero transition
For additional hands-on guidance on financing energy, power and resources projects across multiple sectors, including those covered in this Practice Note, see also the textbook titled Energy and Resources Financing: A Practical Handbook for reference.
What is a CHP project?
Combined heat and power (CHP) is an efficient cogeneration approach that can draw on many different fuels, capturing and making practical use of the heat created during electricity production.
Producing heat and electricity at the same time from a fuel source allows CHP to reach efficiencies beyond those of separate heat generation, for example a gas-fired boiler, and a conventional power station operating separately.
Where both heat and power are required on the same site, CHP can cut energy expenditure, as well as carbon output and air pollution, meaning significantly lower operating costs.
CHP is applicable to many thermal plant types, including energy from waste, biomass with CCUS (BECCS), hydrogen and nuclear; however, most UK installations run on natural gas in practice.
These schemes supply hospitals, university campuses, major industrial facilities and large residential developments...
Energy
PRACTICE NOTES
Community energy projects: policy background, subsidy and grant programmes, legal structuring, planning and licensing, grid connections, and proposed mandates on community benefits and shared ownership
What is the policy and legislative background to the support for community energy projects?
Legal and policy backing for community energy schemes is comparatively new; although early pledges prompted some movement, progress then remained modest for several years. A concise overview follows. The Community Energy Strategy arose from a 2010 Liberal Democrat manifesto promise to ‘encourage community-owned renewable energy schemes where local people benefit from the power produced’. That pledge appeared, unchanged, in The Coalition: programme for government. In 2014 the then coalition administration, through the former Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), issued the UK’s first Community Energy Strategy. DECC then released an update in March 2015. Like the original, the update emphasised enabling localities to make their own advances towards a more decentralised energy system with active community involvement. Further information on the Strategy update is set out in the section: What government policy interventions have been made to support community energy projects? below. DECC later merged with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, creating the former Department for Business,...
Energy
PRACTICE NOTES
Great Britain electricity grid connections: TMO4+ reforms, legal framework for transmission and distribution, contracting, queue management, and Ofgem and NESO roles
For fuller analysis of how the net zero energy transition is regulated, consented and incentivised under the law of England and Wales, consult Collinson and Hockman on Energy Law: Regulating, Consenting and Incentivising the Energy Transition. That textbook provides comprehensive treatment of the topics addressed in this Practice Note.
What is a grid connection?
A grid connection enables a party to link to the local electricity network, or ‘grid’, so they can take (import) and/or send out power. An agreed grid connection is fundamental to maintaining that link and to trading the electricity a project requires through the grid. From a developer delivering a small housing scheme to a utility constructing a nuclear plant, a connection is necessary whenever no pre-existing link is available. In every case, the absence of an existing connection means one must be sought and secured. This is as true for ‘demand projects’ that need to draw and consume electricity for their operations as it is for generation and storage schemes that must export, and sometimes import, electricity...
Energy
PRACTICE NOTES
Great Britain private wire ESCo, community energy and captive offtake projects: electricity supply/distribution licensing, PPA structures, exemptions and domestic consumer risks
Power offtake arrangements
In project-financed power generation schemes, a central document is the power offtake agreement. Commonly termed a ‘power purchase agreement’ or PPA, it is usually a contract between the generator and a licensed electricity supplier acting as offtaker for the plant’s entire output. PPAs of this sort are typically on the supplier’s standard terms, which most funders recognise. For our key resources on PPAs, see: Power purchase agreements and routes to market—overview. These agreements tend to favour the offtaker and securing substantial revisions is generally challenging. An alternative offtake model arises where the generator links directly to one or more local consumers via a ‘private wire’, with those customers purchasing electricity straight from the power station. In broad terms, ‘private wires’ refers to electricity distribution systems not owned or operated by a distribution network operator (DNO) licensed under section 6 of the Electricity Act 1989 (EA 1989). For ease, post‑liberalisation distributors known in the industry as ‘independent’ DNOs or ‘IDNOs’ are treated as DNOs. Private wire arrangements commonly feature in energy services company (ESCo), community energy and captive offtake projects, and from a regulatory...
Energy
PRACTICE NOTES
Legal issues in ESCo CHP projects: electricity via DNOs or private wires, heat network regulation, and key contractual risks (payback flow-down, change in law, title transfer)
What is an Energy Services Company (ESCo)?
There is no single, settled definition of an ESCo, and the term has no special legal status. It is used for organisations involved in generating, distributing and/or supplying energy to end users, as well as those focused on demand management, green retrofits and other efficiency measures. This Practice Note adopts ‘ESCo’ to mean entities engaged in producing and supplying energy—specifically heat delivered as steam or hot water—rather than energy efficiency projects.
An ESCo of this kind will often employ co‑generation of heat and electricity via a combined heat and power (CHP) plant. Variations include combined cooling, heat and power (CCHP), where absorption chillers utilise part of the heat from the CHP plant to create chilled water for air conditioning or refrigeration; and quadgeneration, which incorporates carbon‑capture technologies. For simplicity, this Practice Note refers to ‘CHP’, as many of the practical issues align across these set‑ups.
For further background and technical information on CHP, see Practice Notes:
Combined heat and power—technology
Biomass combined heat and power—technology
An introduction to Combined Heat and Power (CHP)...
Energy
PRACTICE NOTES
Section 36 Electricity Act 1989 consents for generating stations: Great Britain application procedure, EIA and inquiry processes, with 2024–2025 Scottish reforms (Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025)
STOP PRESS: The Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 received Royal Assent on 18 December 2025.
This content is presently being reviewed in line with the Act.
What is section 36 of the Electricity Act 1989?
Section 36 of the Electricity Act 1989 (EA 1989) places a statutory obligation on anyone proposing to construct, expand or operate an electricity generating station to secure consent from the ‘appropriate authority’—that is, the Secretary of State (SoS), Scottish Ministers or Welsh Ministers, depending on the location—unless an exemption applies.
Exemptions exist for particular capacities and types of generating stations, for example onshore wind stations in England and Wales, and projects authorised under other legislative consents such as the Planning Act 2008 (PA 2008). With the advent of the development consent regime under PA 2008, the need to seek consent under EA 1989, s 36 has been markedly diminished. Nevertheless, section 36 continues to be pertinent to:
onshore generating stations in Scotland with a capacity exceeding 50 MW
offshore generation stations within Scottish territorial waters or waters within the Scottish part of a Renewable Energy Zone (being an area of sea outside the UK territorial sea over which the...
Energy
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