Plugged in: who is Gavin?

Who is Gavin?

I’m Gavin. I’m a Solicitor at Birketts, based in our Bristol office. Some might say I’m also a big metal fan – of turbines.

My background

I started my legal career as a banking and finance solicitor, with an early focus on project finance. It was a busy period for the energy sector, with significant M&A activity, portfolio aggregation and the financing and refinancing of projects.

Over time, that focus deepened and I became a project finance specialist. I found myself drawn to the large, complex transactions, the financing of real assets, and the sense that the work was contributing, in a small way, to decarbonising the energy system.

My work covered a wide range of clean energy technologies. These included onshore wind, solar PV, hydropower (both pumped storage and run‑of‑river), battery storage, energy from waste, anaerobic digestion, smart metering and gas peaking plant.

As market conditions evolved, I took the opportunity to move in‑house. I joined RWE’s offshore wind legal team, working for one of the world’s leading offshore wind developers. The role spanned mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, partnerships, service agreements and finance, including project finance.

During that time, I worked on some of the UK’s largest and most complex energy projects, including Rampion, Five Estuaries, Dogger Bank South and Norfolk Vanguard East and West.

Offshore wind moves quickly. Projects must respond to technical challenges, demanding investors, evolving policy and regulation, and shifting market conditions. Understanding how those pressures interact – and finding solutions that work in practice – was a central part of my day‑to‑day role, whether I was advising on the project, shareholders, investors or service providers.

As the offshore wind market became more challenging in 2025, I returned to private practice. I joined Birketts to add to the firm’s Bristol office and to bring together my private practice and in‑house experience of energy transactions.

My interest in energy

Early in my career, I assumed that working on the finance side of a transaction meant focusing mainly on structure, key contracts and the revenue model. But all that changed during my time in‑house. Seeing projects from the inside gave me a much clearer view of how interconnected energy projects really are — technically, commercially and systemically. That perspective shapes how I approach energy transactions and energy projects more generally.

The system

Energy sits at the centre of some of the most important challenges we face. There are fundamental questions to be answered – how much energy we need; how it is generated; how it is transported; how it is funded and paid for; among others.

These questions play out against a backdrop of constrained networks, rising demand and an increasingly diverse mix of generation assets. At the same time, the system relies more heavily on technology, both in daily life and in how energy infrastructure is operated.

Keeping the lights on is complex. Watching how the system adapts is endlessly fascinating.

The projects

I am also particularly interested in the projects themselves. Energy projects are not just transactions. They are long‑lived assets.

Over their lifetime, they must navigate planning risk, grid constraints, construction interfaces, regulatory change, shifting capital markets and price volatility. Whilst a deal might look neat at signing. If it struggles in delivery it will rarely be judged a success – however elegant the documentation.

The challenge

Energy projects sit at an unusual intersection. They are capital‑intensive and long‑dated. Changing policy and regulation can leave projects, often unavoidably, exposed. They rely on complex physical infrastructure and third‑party interfaces. And availability, cost and conditions of capital all increasingly shape a project’s realisation.

Stakeholders take many critical decisions well before financial or equity close. Risk allocation, structural flexibility and resilience to delay, cost pressure or regulatory change all matter enormously. Whilst these issues rarely feature in press releases, they are central for lenders, investors and sponsors.

One recurring theme is the gap between ambition and bankability. Ambition is essential. Without it, projects do not get off the ground. But ambition only becomes reality when developers can finance, deliver and sustain their projects over time.

Understanding where that friction arises and how to smooth it out is, to my mind, one of the most interesting parts of working in this sector.

Through this blog, I’ll explore these themes topic by topic — from project structures and financing considerations to delivery risk and system constraints — to help you stay plugged into the energy sector.