Ainsley Heffernan

Ainsley Heffernan is a partner and co-head of the Projects, Infrastructure and Energy (PIE) group at Beauchamps LLP in Dublin, the firm recognised as winner of the Renewable Energy Law Firm of the Year in Ireland award at the 2024 Corporate INTL Global Awards. With more than twenty years of experience in the energy sector, he leads a team that has become a prominent adviser on Ireland's transition to renewable power, acting on projects across the technologies that are reshaping the country's electricity system.

Heffernan's practice covers the full range of renewable and low-carbon generation, with his team advising on onshore and offshore wind farms, solar photovoltaic projects, energy storage, bioenergy and green hydrogen. Alongside this energy focus he is active in mergers and acquisitions and broader corporate and commercial work, reflecting the commercial character of energy projects, which frequently combine development, financing, contractual and transactional elements. This breadth allows him to guide developers, investors and other stakeholders through the life cycle of a project, from early development through to investment and delivery.

His standing in the field is reinforced by close involvement in Ireland's renewable energy community. He is a former member of the executive council of Wind Energy Ireland and an active member of the Irish Solar Energy Association, positions that place him at the centre of the industry bodies shaping the sector's growth. His work has been recognised through inclusion in A Word About Wind's Legal Power List of the top one hundred global wind energy lawyers, a feature in the Energy Ireland Yearbook as a leading figure in the sector, and regular recognition in Chambers Europe and the Legal 500 as a leading Irish energy lawyer.

Heffernan qualified as a solicitor with the Law Society of Ireland in 1999, having studied at University College Galway, where he took a Bachelor of Arts in 1993 and a Bachelor of Law in 1995. That long career has coincided with the emergence of renewable energy as a central concern of Irish infrastructure and climate policy, giving him an extensive vantage point on the development of the sector and the legal frameworks that support it.

Beauchamps itself is described as one of Ireland's leading full-service commercial law firms, with more than two hundred years of legal heritage and around two hundred staff based at Sir John Rogerson's Quay in Dublin. The firm maintains over thirty practice and sector areas, including banking and finance, projects, infrastructure and energy, corporate and M&A, construction and sustainability, and advises major organisations across Irish business and public life. Within this full-service platform, the Projects, Infrastructure and Energy group led by Heffernan gives clients access to the specialist energy expertise that underpinned the firm's recognition. The 2024 Corporate INTL Global Awards affirm Beauchamps' position as a leading Irish renewable energy adviser and reflect Heffernan's contribution to a sector at the forefront of the country's energy future.