TLT Head of Future Energy shortlisted at Solar and Storage Awards 2025

Maria Connolly, Head of Future Energy at national law firm TLT, has been nominated for the Lucy Aitchison Women in Energy Award, recognising her commitment to driving the energy transition, which has spanned her career. 

The Solar & Storage Awards celebrate cutting-edge innovation and the trailblazers driving the transition to clean energy. The Lucy Aitchison Women in Energy Award recognises and celebrates an outstanding woman in the energy sector who has helped to drive the energy transition and empowered the move towards a more flexible and sustainable energy system of the future.

The nomination acknowledges Maria’s recent achievements, her long history of outstanding work in the future energy sector and the success she has driven in building TLT’s market-leading Future Energy Team. Having joined TLT as a trainee in 1997, she has dedicated her 27-year career to the sector and has led the firm’s practice since its inception. 

She leads a 150-strong legal team driving the UK’s clean energy transition and has been recognised in The Lawyer’s Hot 100 and Legal 500’s Green Ambassador list for her pioneering sustainability and inclusion work.

Across her career, she has developed a reputation as a genuine innovator, having developed legal frameworks and precedents for multi-technology projects (solar + storage); spearheaded a first-of-its-kind future energy strategy at TLT to support emerging technologies and subsidy-free projects; and helped TLT become one of the first UK law firms to commit to net-zero by 2040, verified by the SBTi.

She has also been a strong advocate for women in future energy and the legal sector more broadly. She is an active mentor for women in future energy and law and a founding member of RegenSW’s Entrepreneurial Women in Renewable Energy programme and was a key contributor to TLT achieving its 33% female partner target two years early.

The shortlisting follows a successful year for TLT’s Future Energy Team during which it was ranked in the top ten most influential law firms in clean energy M&A worldwide in Clean Energy Pipeline’s 2025 Clean Energy Legal League Table.

It also follows significant investments made by TLT into its capabilities in the future energy and infrastructure arena with the addition of a team of 29 lawyers from Broadfield who will be joining the firm throughout 2025.