Finance and Economic Opportunities
In the State of the Province Address by Premier Alan Winde, he noted that the Western Cape Government had procured technical expertise to assist in the Municipal Energy Resilience (MER) Project:
- What exactly is meant by procuring “technical expertise”, (b) if individuals have been employed for this purpose, is it on (i) a full-time basis or (ii) a part-time and/or consultation basis, (c) how many individuals have been employed and (d) what qualifica-tions do they need to have to be considered experts?
- What exactly is meant by procuring “technical expertise”
As part of the Municipal Energy Resilience (MER) project, the Department of Economic Development and Tourism has onboarded service providers to provide strategic advice to guide and assist the province and relevant municipalities, as well as service providers to develop foundational business cases and identify pioneering renewable energy projects.
For one set of service providers, business cases will be provided on four MER project components:
- Municipal utility scale procurement from Independent Power Producers (IPPs) (e.g. large-scale wind or solar farms).
- Distributed generation: Build new generation capacity to improve municipal resilience in energy. This includes municipal own generation (e.g. solar PV above 10 MW, energy from wastewater treatment plants), procurement from IPPs (10MW - approx. 100MW) and wheeling[1]
- New energy self-generation at small-scale embedded generation (SSEG) scale (under 1MW) (e.g. rooftop solar panel / PV system - commercial or household)
- Energy Storage: Large scale battery storage at utility and sub-utility scale (e.g. containerised battery units through to backup power systems for rooftop PV)
The business cases will include exploring multiple renewable energy technologies and scales, cost options, scale of investment required, location issues, risks, municipal readiness needs, infrastructure needs, timelines to get capacity onto the grid, procurement mechanisms, regulatory issues etc. These studies will provide the foundational research to accelerate the necessary preparation and development of municipal renewable energy projects.
The second set of service providers will provide support for project identification, prioritisation and development of a roadmap of potential pioneering projects for phase 2, based on the municipal and project opportunity evaluation and selection as indicated above.
This includes the identification of appropriate transaction / procurement mechanisms (e.g. Independent Power Producer (IPP) auctions or direct power purchase agreements (PPA); Public Private Partnerships (PPP); or other transaction/funding sources such as grants, concessional finance, private investment, debt: blended finance approach etc.).
Strategic advisory support will also be provided on the implementation of pioneering energy projects in the identified candidate municipalities along with working with municipalities to help fill gaps (technical, grid capacity, foundational studies etc.) to enable future energy project implementation.
- if individuals have been employed for this purpose, is it on (i) a full-time basis or (ii) a part-time and/or consultation basis
The two sets of service providers have been employed on a consultation basis:
The service provider for the project development services work has been contracted until the end of June 2021.
The service provider for the strategic advisory services work has been contracted until the end of March 2023.
how many individuals have been employed
Project development services: 14 individuals
Strategic advisor services: 4 individuals
what qualifications do they need to have to be considered experts?
As per the Terms of Reference (TOR), the level of expertise was determined by:
Project development services: The lead consultants and key staff’s experience relevant to the assignment (i.e. energy and / or catalytic infrastructure -related) in managing teams in complex programmes / projects, business case development & evaluation, project prioritisation, planning & development and energy related policy and legislation; Electricity/power sector-related experience: technical, financial, economic development, legal & other knowledge required for assignment: 1. Municipalities/ local government; 2. Energy technologies & solutions; 3. Transaction/ procurement / financial (i.e. either IPP, PPA, PPP, RFP, concessional financing, debt financing, blended financing mechanisms) and relevant academic qualifications of key personnel i.e. science/engineering/economics/business management/ finance / sustainable development .
Strategic advisor services: Relevant strategic advisory development and implementation experience in national or regional integrated programmes and projects as an executive level consultant and/or management at an executive strategic level; energy-related experience relevant to the assignment. i.e. national and/or sub-national catalytic infrastructure advisory, planning and implementation of integrated energy related programmes and projects (e.g. ideally in or with the IPP Office or similar programme(s) in the energy- related sectors); strategy development and implementation experience in energy related assignments; complex programme & project management, involving multiple projects stakeholders, linkages, and service providers; infrastructure project finance (e.g. experience including but not limited to IPP, PPA, PPP, RFP, concessional financing, debt financing, blended financing mechanisms applied in projects). Relevant academic qualifications i.e. in science/ engineering/ economics/ business management/ finance/ law
[1] Wheeling allows energy generators to pass the electricity they generate through the municipal electricity grid to a willing buyer anywhere in the municipality or country i.e. it allows for energy trading across the grid.
