Bridgend Town Heat Network - Design, Build, Operate, Maintain

Tender description

The Council is seeking to procure suitably experienced companies to support the successful development of a heat and private electricity network in Bridgend town centre – the Bridgend Town Heat Network (‘BTHN’). As part of the project the Council is proposing to create an energy service company (‘ESCO’) to enter into the contracts for the design, build, operation and maintenance of the BTHN with the successful contractor following the procurement process. The ESCO will be a newly created special purpose company which is wholly owned by the Council. The ESCO will own the infrastructure as well as operate the BTHN and enter into contracts with customers for the sale of heat and electricity. Funding for the project is expected to be provided in part from the Council and in part from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) Heat Networks Investment Project (HNIP). Lot 1: The Bridgend Town Heat Network project is located adjacent to the centre of Bridgend Town. The scheme is primarily retrofit connecting the existing Bridgend Life Centre, Civic Offices and Bridgend Bowls Centre. The scheme will create an Energy Centre in the plant room of the Bridgend Life Centre which will utilise a gas CHP engine to supply heat and power to the buildings involved in the scheme. Bridgend County Borough Council is the primary building owner within the scheme (although the Life Centre and Bowls Hall are operated by Halo Leisure). It is anticipated that the contract scope shall include (but is not limited to): (1) Design and build of: (a) the energy centre to be located in the Bridgend Life Centre including CHP unit, back-up/ top-up boilers, thermal stores, and all ancillary plant and equipment required to provide heat and electricity to customers in the Phase 1 scheme. (b) the district heating network from the energy centre to all customers in the Phase 1 scheme including the connection of the district heating network to the secondary distribution networks within the customer sites. This may include works on the secondary distribution networks to ensure those networks are suitable for connection to the district heating network. (c) the private wire electricity network from the energy centre to all customers in the Phase 1 scheme. (2) Operation, maintenance (planned and reactive) and repair of all of the assets being designed and built as referred to at (1) above including performance monitoring and reporting and optimisation of plant operation to minimise the use of back-up boilers. The successful contractor will be responsible for the cost of consumables required for the operation and maintenance of the assets. Lifecycle risk will be retained by the ESCO. However, the successful contractor may be required to carry out lifecycle replacement works at the ESCO's cost. (3) Collection and provision of metering data and supporting ESCO with customer interface on operational issues including works and maintenance required at customer premises. The contract will contain the option for the successful contractor to price and carry out the design and build of network extensions to new customers beyond the Phase 1 scheme but the ESCO will reserve the right to benchmark the price of those works and potentially award those works to third party contracts. The contract will require the successful contractor to operate and maintain the network as extended whether or not the contractor has carried out the extension works. Additional information: The contract value includes an estimated value for Phase 1 (excluding lifecycle) of GBP4.4m (GBP3.4 capex plus O&M) and an allowance of a further GBP1.5m for the value of any network extensions that may be instructed at the Council's option. The contract duration stated represents 5 years of O&M following completion of the works. This may be extended by a further 5 years at the Council's option.