Ekin Senlet

Practice Areas

• Energy

• Regulatory

• Renewable Energy

• Oil & Gas

Career

Ekin serves as a Regulatory Practice Area co-chair along with Brenda Colella and primarily concentrates her practice on regulatory issues in the energy industry, including infrastructure siting matters, major electric and gas utility rate cases, regulatory compliance, and other utility and generator-facility related proceedings. She routinely represents clients in administrative proceedings before the NYS Public Service Commission. She has extensive experience working with electric and gas utilities, pipeline companies, and generators, and she frequently handles energy-production and transmission-line projects, renewable siting projects for utility scale wind farms, environmental-permitting matters, and related commercial matters in the energy industry. Recently, Ekin has been serving as a lead counsel on PSC approvals for major transmission infrastructure projects for Equinor’s Empire Wind 1, Empire Wind 2 and Beacon Wind off-shore wind projects, and on the Smart Path Connect and Smart Path transmission line projects. Along with Brenda, Ekin also has been serving as the PSC counsel to Forward Power for the Clean Path NY transmission line project.

Ekin additionally works closely with energy service companies (ESCOs) participating in the electric and gas retail marketplace in New York. She provides legal counsel on issues related to ESCO licensing, marketing practices, and regulatory compliance with the requirements established by the PSC, including the New York Uniform Business Practices and relevant PSC orders.

Ekin also represents cable and telecommunication companies before the PSC and assists major cable clients with their merger dockets, management and operations audit matters, and regulatory compliance matters before the PSC. Recently, she has been working as the point of contact for the firm’s major telecommunications clients Altice USA and Charter Communications, Inc.

Ekin has previously served as co-chair of the New York Bar Association’s Siting and Utility Regulation Committee within the Environmental and Energy Law Section, and as a former president of the Women’s Energy Network, Greater Albany Chapter.

Ekin also regularly presents at nationwide renewable energy conferences and speaks on issues related to permitting challenges, interconnection delays, and site control.

Professional Memberships

• New York State Bar Association, Environmental and Energy Law Section—Utility Regulation, Co-Chair

• Energy Bar Association, Member

• Alliance for Clean Energy New York, Member

• American Wind Energy Association, Member

• Women’s Energy Network, Greater Albany Chapter (WEN), Past President and Board Member

• Solar Energy Industries Association, Member

• Women in Communications and Energy (WICE), Member

• Institute for Energy Law, Member

• Business Network for Offshore Wind, Member

• Barclay Damon’s Women’s Forum, Member

Publications

• Law360, "A Plan to Meet New York's Expanded Energy Goals"

• USLAW Magazine, "Carbon Pricing in the United States and New York As a Case Study"

• Barclay Damon LLP, “NYS PSC Modifies Pole Attachment Rules to Accelerate Broadband and Cellular Service Deployment”

• Barclay Damon LLP, “NYS PSC Launches ‘Grid of the Future’ Proceeding”

• Barclay Damon LLP, “Proposed NYS Budget Includes Major Changes to ORES and Transmission Siting”

• Barclay Damon LLP, “NYS Governor Hochul Embraces Green Energy in Annual State of the State Address”

• Barclay Damon LLP, “NYS Public Service Commission Grants Empire Wind 1 a Certificate of Environmental Compatibility and Public Need”

Personal

• Legal Project of Albany, Volunteer Attorney

Expert in these Jurisdictions

• New York

• District of Columbia

• US District Court for the Northern District of New York

Languages Spoken

English

Experience

• Lead PSL Article VII counsel to Equinor Wind US on the state permitting of the 816-megawatt Empire Wind offshore wind farm to be connected to the New York’s electrical grid in Brooklyn, New York.

• Successfully represented the New York Power Authority, the nation’s largest state power organization, before the PSC for an Article VII application for approval of the replacement and upgrade of NYPA’s 86-mile Moses-to-Adirondack transmission lines.

• Jointly represent LS Power Grid NY and NYPA in seeking multiple approvals (Article VII, PSL Section 68, Section 69, and Section 70) from the PSC in connection with the rebuild of 93-mile transmission lines from the Marcy substation to the New Scotland substation.

• Co-chair of the team that successfully represented and obtained an Article VII certificate for Transmission Developers, Inc., in connection with the Champlain-Hudson Power Express Project, a 1,000 MW HVDC transmission line running from New York’s border with Canada to New York City.

• Successfully represented Invenergy before the Siting Board in obtaining the approvals needed under PSL Article 10 for the construction and siting of the 340 MW Alle-Catt wind farm in Allegany, Cattaraugus, and Wyoming counties and for the 290 MW Canisteo wind farm in Steuben County.

• Appears on behalf of Charter Communications, Inc., and Altice USA before the PSC in relation to the merger dockets, storm response, management and operations audit, COVID-19 proceedings, and FOIL and FOIA requests as well as general regulatory compliance for cable and telecom providers.

• Represented a major energy company in litigation involving preemption under the Federal Power Act.

• Assisted with siting approval from the PSC for a new gas pipeline serving the Greenidge Generating Station in Dresden, New York, as well as lightened regulation for both the pipeline and the Greenidge Station.

• Represents an energy company in obtaining siting approval under PSL Article 10 for the repowering of an existing major electric-generating facility using renewable natural gas and green hydrogen as the main fuel source.

• Represents a major New York and Massachusetts utility in connection with its electric- and gas-rate cases as well as management and operations audit matters before the PSC, the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities, and the Rhode Island Public Utilities Commission. Provides discovery support to various utility clients.

• Regularly represents clients regarding the governance processes and markets overseen by NYISO, including the interconnection processes for connecting facilities to New York State’s electrical grid and the competitive wholesale electric markets it administers.

• Represented the Retail Energy Supply Association, a nationwide trade organization of ESCOs, in the PSC ESCO proceedings and continues to represent individual ESCOs on regulatory issues affecting the retail gas and electric markets, including compliance with the UBPs, cybersecurity, responses to customer complaints, and marketing and billing matters.

• Regularly represents energy clients in PSC proceedings under Sections 68 and 70 of the Public Service Law as well as lightened regulation of wholesale generators and upstream corporate transfers.

• Successfully secured necessary municipal and state permits for an international telecommunications company in connection with the construction of new telecommunication towers in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Vermont.

• Co-chaired a real-property-tax litigation matter for a large electric-generator client in New York State.

• Assisted a major energy company in all aspects of property tax issues, property tax liability analysis, trial, and appeals in New York and Maryland.

• Representing the New York Power Authority with respect to the siting and construction of a rebuild of an 86-mile-long transmission line that traverses 15 municipalities. Barclay Damon attorneys prepared and finalized the Article VII Application, assisted the NYPA with supplementing filings to achieve a “complete” application, handled the discovery phase, and led months of settlement conferences. The settlement negotiations culminated in a joint proposal for settlement support by all of the active parties and state agencies. A CECPN was issued by the PSC without the need for an evidentiary hearing. We then assisted the NYPA in the preparation of the Environmental Management and Construction Plans (EM&CP) for the project, which were also approved by the PSC. Construction is currently ongoing for this project. We continue to support the NYPA with compliance issues during construction.

• Representing the New York Power Authority (NYPA) on rebuilding a major 100-mile transmission line (known as the Smart Path Connect Project) designated by the Public Service Commission (PSC) as a “priority transmission project.” In partnership with National Grid as a co-applicant, we represented NYPA in preparing and filing the Article VII application for the project and participated in months of settlement negotiations with various state agencies and stakeholders, which resulted in a joint settlement. Construction on the project commenced in October 2022. Our attorneys continue to work on various compliance studies and filings for this priority transmission project.

Education

Awards