Energy and related services

Tender description

Bristol City Council is seeking to appoint a strategic partner to form a long term corporate joint venture with the Council, the City Leap Energy Partnership, to provide and secure low-carbon energy-related investment and expertise to deliver City Leap’s Strategic Objectives. The City Leap Energy Partnership will provide opportunities for the development, construction, and financing of low-carbon energy-related projects and delivery of associated services to assist with meeting Bristol’s carbon neutrality targets. It will also afford the opportunity to provide certain services (detailed below) to other public bodies in the South West region. The procurement will be governed by Concession Contracts Regulations 2016 (including any amendments/variations /transitional provisions that apply to this procurement). In May 2018, the Council released the City Leap Prospectus (http://www.energyservicebristol.co.uk/prospectus/) as part of a soft market testing exercise. 180 expressions of Interest were received in response to the prospectus from a wide range of organisations. Subsequently, an internal options appraisal was carried out by the Council which recommended establishing a joint venture company with a strategic partner (which could be a consortium of organisations). This recommendation was approved by the Council’s Cabinet on 2 April 2019. The terms of this approval were updated in subsequent Cabinet Reports (see links below to these reports). The Council is seeking to procure a strategic partner to form a long-term joint venture with the Council, the City Leap Energy Partnership, in order to secure substantial low carbon infrastructure investment and delivery capability. As part of its role in the City Leap Energy Partnership, in addition to providing finance and investment for the City Leap opportunity, the strategic partner will be expected to provide commercial support and technical expertise to assist with the origination, development, facilitation and delivery of low carbon energy-related assets and services. It is anticipated that the origination and development services may also be provided to public bodies other than the Council across the South West region. The strategic partner will be willing to work in partnership with a broad range of organisations, including those working in Bristol’s community, energy and sustainability sectors and other public bodies, to facilitate the delivery of low carbon energy projects on a city-wide and, potentially, regional basis. It is expected that the City Leap Energy Partnership will comprise a joint venture company between the strategic partner and the Council (JVCo). This structure (including any subsidiaries of the joint venture, formal corporate linkages, funding structures and governance arrangements) will be developed in conjunction with bidders during the tender process. The Council expects to play an active role in delivering City Leap, and anticipates this will include the potential contribution of certain low carbon energy-related assets, e.g. the Council’s heat network assets, and the provision of opportunities for the City Leap Energy Partnership to access the Council’s estate, e.g. land and buildings, for the purposes of delivering low carbon energy-related projects. Origination and development services will be able to be provided to other public bodies in the South West via a single supplier framework agreement entered into by Bristol City Council as contracting authority and the JVCo as supplier as part of this procurement. Further information on all aspects of the opportunities and services will be provided in the procurement documents. The document containing the list of the framework beneficiaries in part of the SQ stage documentation pack. For the avoidance of doubt, it is anticipated that the procurement process will involve multiple stages, including negotiations, and the Council reserves the right to reduce the number of solutions discussed or tenders to be negotiated.The Council is using ‘ProContract’ (the Council’s procurement portal) to manage this procurement and to communicate with all participants. No hard copy documents will be issued. Bidders must ensure that the details of the point of contact nominated are accurate at all times as the Council will not be under any obligation to contact anyone other than the nominated person.