Rural electric distribution cooperative GreyStone Power Corp. has inked a five-year, $600 million power purchase and scheduling agreement with Morgan Stanley Capital Group.
Attorneys from Schiff Hardin’s Washington office served as project counsel for Douglasville-based GreyStone, which is one of the largest members of Oglethorpe Power Corp. GreyStone supplies electricity to eight metro-Atlanta counties.
“Most of GreyStone’s power is provided by Oglethorpe, the generation and transmission cooperative,” said Sherry A. Quirk, one of the Schiff Hardin partners on the deal.
Morgan Stanley Capital Group, she added, fills GreyStone’s energy needs that are not met by Oglethorpe or that can be more economically met by another resource.
Thomas M. Ingoldsby, the other Schiff Hardin partner handling the transaction, said that Morgan Stanley Capital Group trades in the energy market, buying and selling power supplies. “Part of what they’re doing is they’re purchasing power that they’ll use to supply GreyStone’s needs,” she said.
GreyStone opened a competitive procurement process in January, seeking bids and negotiating agreements with potential power suppliers. “We did essentially simultaneous negotiations among three parties who developed final and best offers with respect to contract terms as well as price,” Quirk said.
The competition, Ingoldsby said, gave GreyStone more opportunity to negotiate and ultimately drove down the power purchase price.
Ingoldsby said that Morgan Stanley Capital Group was represented by lawyers from McDermott Will & Emery in Washington. He said he and Quirk consulted on Georgia law with lawyers from GreyStone’s usual local counsel at Tisinger Vance in Carrollton.