Public procurement notice: Prior Information Notice Without Call For Competition
Published: 2020-03-31
Buyer: Energistyrelsen (Danish Energy Agency)
Country: DK
Contract type: Works
CPV classification: 31121310 | 31121320 | 31121330 | 31121340 | 31161000

Technical requirements: In 2018, all political parties in the Danish Parliament entered into an Energy Agreement to ensure the green transition and provide security for long term investments. As part of the agreement, the parties decided to establish three new large-scale offshore wind farms before 2030, which will expand the supply of energy from offshore wind by at least 2 400 MW. The first of the three wind farms to be tendered is Thor Offshore Wind Farm. Please see the elaborate description in section II.2.4) and documents available at the website referred to in section I.1). The purpose of this prior information notice is to inform market players about the existence and overall features of the upcoming tender. The information in this notice and in the documents on the website referred to in section I.1) is non-binding to the Danish Energy Agency. The contract notice and the tender documents are expected be published in Q3 2020 and will launch the tender procedure with binding documents.
OWF in the Danish North Sea west of Thorsminde at Nissum Fjord, min. 20 km off the coast; offshore substation and grid connection incl. nearshore substation north of Nissum Fjord up to POC at Tuskær.
The tender concerns a concession for the Thor Offshore Wind Farm, which will be located in the North Sea west of Thorsminde by Nissum Fjord at a distance of minimum 20 km from the shore and with a capacity of min. 800 MW and max. 1 000 MW. As in previous Danish offshore wind farm tenders, the tendering model will be a negotiated procedure with pre-qualification. The concession owner of Thor Offshore Wind Farm will receive subsidies in the form of a price premium for a 20-year period. The subsidies will be granted in accordance with a CfD-scheme designed for this tender. It is a two-way CfD with caps on both the Danish State’s payment to the concession owner and the concession owner’s payment to the Danish State, which will prevent that neither one carries the full risk of the electricity price developing fundamentally different from the forecast. For more in-depth description of the subsidy scheme please see the above website referred to in section I.1).
Q3 2020 — Publication of contract notice and tendering material, launch of pre-qualification (date has not been fixed),
The concession winner shall carry out installation of the offshore wind farm, including the offshore substation and the grid connection from the offshore substation to the POC at the nearshore substation on land. Certain results from preliminary surveys (fine-screening of 2018, program for site-investigations and collection of MetOcean data 2019, bird surveys 2019) are already available, please see the above website referred to in section I.1). Prior to submission of final bids, a strategic environmental assessment (SEA) of the plan for Thor offshore wind farm will be conducted. Furthermore, supplementary surveys with focus on benthic flora and fauna, marine mammals, fish and fisheries, underwater noise, safety of navigation, radar and radio interference, marine archaeology, visibility analysis and cumulative impacts as well as a full EIA for the onshore project to be built by Energinet will be carried out. All results will be published as they become available in due time before submission of final bids. It should be noted, that the concession winner will be responsible for undertaking the environmental impact assessment (EIA) of the concrete project offshore after the signing of the concession agreement. Establishment of necessary nearshore facilities from POC and grid connection forward to the transmission grid at Idomlund will be provided by the Danish TSO, Energinet. The onshore grid connection will be built to receive 1 000 MW in the POC and will be available to receive first power by Q1 2025.
Conditions for participation (criteria for pre-qualification, etc.) are described in ‘Expected tender procedure and conditions for participation’ at the website referred to in section I.1). The conditions for participation are put in place to ensure that pre-qualified applicants meet requirements regarding financial and technical capacity required to establish the wind farm project. The financing of the installation of the offshore wind farm including Energinet’s part of the onshore facilities (app. DKK 625 million) is to be provided by the successful bidder. License for electricity production and authorisation will be granted for 30 years with the possibility of a prolongation of 5 years if allowed under applicable regulation. A penalty for defective performance will be applied and the concession owner will have to provide a guarantee for the penalty. The concession owner must connect 95 % of the wind farm to the onshore POC by 31 December 2027 at the latest.
Award criteria: when evaluating the bids, both the offered bid price per kWh and the total expected subsidy costs over the 20-year period are relevant, due to a budget evaluation threshold. For elaborate information on selection criteria and award criteria, see website referred to in section I.1).
Further information about the tender is available at the website referred to in section I.1). As part of the tender preparation, the Danish Energy Agency has conducted technical dialogues in 2019. Both the dialogue materials and the outcome of the dialogues and all other information on the Thor tender are either directly available on the mentioned website or via links at that site to relevant other websites.
— expected procedure and conditions for participation (minimum levels for financial and technical capacity),
— fine-screening of the sea territory for establishment of new offshore wind farms (info on the site),
— guidelines for environmental assessments for Thor Offshore Wind Farm (info on SEA and EIA process).
The potential operators are expected to be large operators or joint ventures with sufficient relevant references regarding construction of offshore wind farms. The Danish Energy Agency recommends that smaller interested operators approach larger operators as potential subcontractors or alternatively form joint ventures to obtain the necessary financial and technical capacity. A tenderer may rely on the experience and capacity, including the financial and economic capacity of other economic operators. The estimated contract value is DKK 15.5 billion. It should be noted that the amount is an estimate of the total expected contract value, where the estimate is CAPEX-figures for a 900 MW wind farm. For a contract value adding a +/- 5 % safety margin the figures DKK 13.2 billion (800 MW) to DKK 17.7 billion (1 000 MW) have been estimated. The estimated figures are based on Danish Energy Agency energy catalogue figures found here: https://ens.dk/sites/ens.dk/files/Statistik/technology_data_catalogue_for_el_and_dh_-_0007_1.pdf
The concession agreement will contain a standard ILO (International Labour Organisation) labour clause and a social clause with obligations with regards to creation of apprenticeships. The concession owner will have to follow Danish regulation on environment protection, safety, IT safety, working environment, etc. The concession owner will be obliged to pay for pre-investigations conducted by Energinet (app. DKK 300 million) and for any necessary mitigations actions in relation to Danish radar installations. Detailed information on contract conditions, the mentioned costs, etc. will be included in the tender material to be published later. The tender material will besides tender conditions and pre-qualification material enclose draft concession, draft licenses for preliminary investigations, establishing the offshore wind farm and for electricity production, etc. Questions regarding this prior information notice and related information must be submitted in English no later than 24 April 2020 to thor@ens.dk and are limited to questions related to the understanding of terms and other information provided. Questions will, to the extent possible, be answered on an ongoing basis. Reference is made to the comprehensive Q&A report on the market dialogue from February 2020 to be found at the website referred to in section I.1). Please see also the published ‘Overview over documents on Thor’. Interested operators are requested to keep updated at the website referred to in section I.1). An information meeting is expected to be held in Q3 2020 in Copenhagen after publication of the contract notice and the tender documents. Detailed information with regard to concrete date and place, sign up, etc., will be included in the contract notice and the tender documents.