A recent lawsuit filed by a wind farm demonstrates once again the tremendous range of areas covered by breach of contract doctrine. Granted, when you're dealing with long-term contracts of the type involved in emerging technologies, the dollar figures involved are often rather substantial. And this is logical; many of these projects couldn't get off the ground unless there was a sufficient commitment of resources.
But, despite the difference in the dollars at stake, the basic contract principles are the same.
In this case, brought by Benton County Wind Farm against Duke Energy, Benton claims that Duke drastically reduced the energy it had previously agreed to buy from Benton, breaching their agreement.
Predictably, Duke Energy had no public comment, but it will be interesting to see how this case, involving some rather large companies, pans out.