Public procurement notice: Contract Notice
Published: 2022-02-11
Buyer: European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF)
Country: UK
Contract type: Services
Procedure: Open procedure
CPV classification: 73000000
Estimated value: 1550000 EUR
Submission deadline: 2022-03-15
Award criteria: The most economic tender

Technical requirements: ECMWF, as the Entrusted Entity for the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), invites tenders for services to address the needs of the energy sector users both in Europe and at the global level. The Invitation to Tender (ITT) is split into two Lots and covers the provision of one contract (Lot 1) to produce timely, high-quality information for the energy sector and a separate contract (Lot 2) to support the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E) in the preparation of the Pan-European Climate Database and to further liaise with ENTSO-E to collect and address their specific evolving needs. Tenderers may respond to one or both Lots. For each Lot, ECMWF intends to award a single framework agreement for a period of 36 months, which shall be implemented via Service Contracts expected to commence in Q2 2022.
The enhanced operational energy service will have to produce timely, high-quality information for the energy sector, including relevant climate variables and energy variables related to demand and production from renewables, to address the needs of community needing to rely on renewable resources. The climate information must be built on the Climate Data Store (CDS) infrastructure data and software development platform, which allows the creation of web-based applications, operating on the datasets and products available in the catalogue. The service must be built based on relevant stakeholder engagement and information highlighted through collection of user requirements activities. Elements to address some of the limitations to the current service, listed in the ITT documents, shall be proposed.
• Deliver an enhanced operational energy service at the global scale, covering data about the past climate, multi-model seasonal forecasts (and associated skills) and multi-model climate projections – fully based and running on the CDS infrastructure and the toolbox.
• Guarantee a continuation or an integration of the existing operational energy service components into this enhanced operational energy service.
• Collect feedback on already published datasets/applications in the CDS and provide a gap analysis of the energy information made available to users in order to steer the service design in terms of them. Evolving user requirements should be considered in order to refine the information provided and the service evolution.
• Engage with relevant user communities, address downstream market needs, and prepare specific case studies to demonstrate the added value of the energy products into users data value chains.
The European Network of Transmission System Operators (ENTSO-E) is a non-profit association of 43 electricity transmission system operators (TSOs) from 33 countries across Europe, established by the EU in 2009. ENTSO-E is the responsible entity for producing resource adequacy scenarios. Those are used for resource adequacy assessments whose purpose is to assess tail of distribution events, which lead to load shedding, i.e. the inability of the electricity system to supply all consumers.
In 2022, ECMWF and ENTSO-E are setting up a framework of cooperation, through a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), where ECMWF intends to support the work for building version 4.0 of ENTSO-E’s PECD that includes climate change impacts on the power system (especially for long-term prospective studies), by providing the ENTSO-E with necessary data and expertise, as well as dedicated training to ENTSO-E Members as needed. Reciprocally, ENTSO-E wishes to support ECMWF with the provision of knowledge on energy conversion models and/or data needed to calibrate related models, the collection of user requirements from ENTSO-E Members on climate data products and services, contribution to stakeholder events and workshops on C3S SIS Energy and to make the outcome of the Cooperation Project publicly available.
To ensure that the use of climate and energy data for national resource adequacy assessments is as representative as possible for the next decades, this database has to be upgraded to v4 to include a proper climate change signal. This product, built on climate data, is relevant for all ENTSO-E members (European TSOs) but the target database / applications / tools is very likely to meet the needs of a very large community of users in the energy sector in Europe, from energy producers, aggregators, project developers, from both the private and public sectors. The co-development of this new PECD under the C3S program would in addition strengthen the links and possible collaborations between end-users and the research, development and innovation community, in line with EU’s policy.
• Engage with ENTSO-E to develop further service components, to provide specific consultation activities and support.
Special conditions: In order to avoid any conflict of interest (or perceived conflict of interest), the Tenderer should be independent from ENTSO-E. ECMWF will reject tenders which involve entities and/or individuals which have participated in or provided consultancy during the preparation of this ITT.
The procurement for the contract will be conducted in accordance with ECMWF's procedures as set out in Invitation to Tender documents, which will be available on ECMWF's eProcurement Portal (http://procurement.ecmwf.int/) and no other procedures will apply. In submitting this notice ECMWF does not waive the privileges and immunities granted to it by virtue of its status as an intergovernmental organisation or submit itself to any jurisdiction. Tenders must be submitted using ECMWF's eProcurement Portal. Hard copy (paper) submissions will not be accepted.
Due to the need to include performance and compliance obligations in the contract, ECMWF will contract only with a single legal person or entity which is competent to undertake and commit to these obligations. ECMWF recognises that some bids will involve a number of organisations which may wish to work together to deliver the contract requirements. In such cases, these organisations must identify a lead contractor who will sign the contract with ECMWF and who will be responsible for putting in place legal arrangements to ensure that it can guarantee that all other organisations will also meet the contract obligations. ECMWF will not enter into multiple contracts with individual members of consortia or groups of service providers.
Eligibility of United Kingdom (UK) and Swiss (CH) entities: Refer to Section 3.2.2 of Volume I of the ITT documents.


Award value: 1550000