Assignment Background: Turkish businesses and municipalities face increasingly serious challenges related to the management of water, energy and waste. Population growth, economic expansion, continuing urbanisation and industrialisation, and climate change are placing enormous pressures on water and energy resources while increasing waste generation and pollution. Approximation with the EU acquis is driving wide-ranging reforms of regulatory frameworks for water and waste management, creating significant challenges in terms of adopting EU directives while coping with intensifying water stress and waste generation.
At present, awareness of this rapidly evolving context and of the resource efficiency technologies that can help to meet these challenges is limited in Turkey. Consequently, the Turkish banking sector is not yet able to provide adequate levels of finance to support the adoption of such technologies. This constrains businesses' and municipalities’ ability to take advantage of the shifting market conditions and associated opportunities for cost savings through resource efficiency investments.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (the "EBRD" or the "Bank") has taken this into consideration when developing a third credit line under the Turkey Sustainable Energy Financing Facility (the "Facility" or "TurSEFF III"). This will take the form of a framework operation under which credit lines of up to EUR 400 million will be provided by EBRD to Turkish banks ("Partner Financial Institutions or PFIs") for on-lending to eligible private and public sector companies to finance resource efficiency (“ResE”) and small-scale renewable energy (“RE”) investments. Co-financing by other International Financial Institutions ("IFIs") of up to EUR 100 million additional to EBRD funds may be possible but not confirmed at this time.
Assignment Description: The EBRD seeks to engage a Project Consultant (the “PC” or the “Consultant”) to provide capacity-building to PFIs to institutionalise the know-how required to support these types of investment. The PC will provide support to PFIs to build a pipeline of eligible sub-project s for financing and help sub-borrowers develop and prepare their Sub-projects for financing by PFIs. The PC will also ensure that visibility of the Facility and the donors.
In order to build capacity amongst professionals in the local market to ensure there is support for PFIs in implementing their own green lending products in the future, the PC will also provide training for local experts, to help them develop necessary skills and technical expertise for identification and preparation of technically feasible and financially viable projects for Energy Efficiency (“EE”) and RE investments.
The Consultant will provide the following services:
· Ensure the technical criteria of the Facility are clearly defined, consistently applied and updated;
· Assist in the development of a sub-project portfolio: screening proposed sub-projects to confirm eligibility; providing help to enterprises to identify and develop RE and ResE investments for financing. Sub-projects will generally fall into one of two categories:
(i) technology-driven, where equipment is chosen by the sub-borrower from a pre-approved list of technologies (the "Technology Selector") known to save significant amounts of energy, water or materials; and
(ii) where the investment is subject to an assessment of technical, financial and environmental aspects.
· Update, and maintain throughout the life of the Facility, the list of pre-approved technologies to include technologies which will contribute to the saving of water and materials.
· Support the PFIs in analysing their client base and customising tailored lending products to address the implementation of eligible technologies and practices in the long-term.
· Work in close collaboration with PFIs and advise on the incorporation and mainstreaming of sustainable energy and resource efficiency financing within the operations of the PFIs.
· Conduct capacity building activities with PFIs (subject to EBRD agreement) to ensure dissemination of Facility procedures to regional branches.
· Work with PFIs to develop a marketing strategy for the Facility to target eligible clients.
· Monitor the portfolio of projects and provide periodic reporting on the progress and implementation of the Facility.
· Provide overall coordination between the stakeholders of the Facility.
· Provide overall administration and monitoring of the Facility.
· Ensure adequate donor visibility while marketing the Facility.
· Prepare case studies and lessons learned, and organise annual sustainable energy excellence awards ceremonies.
· Organise workshops for municipalities to increase knowledge and skills about the development, implementation and financing of ResE and RE projects.
Assignment Duration: Anticipated start date is September 2016 with an estimated duration of 4 years. The contract may be extended subject to EBRD needs, Consultant’s performance, extension of the Facility and availability of donor funding.
Cost Estimate for the Assignment: EUR 5,500,000; exclusive of VAT.
The consultant must determine whether any VAT would be chargeable on the services and the basis for that determination, without taking into consideration the Bank's special status as an IFI and state this to the Bank in their response to the Invitation for Expressions of Interest. To the extent that a consultant incurs input VAT on goods and services purchased in connection with the provision of services (e.g. VAT on airline ticket) which is not otherwise recoverable by the consultant from the local tax authority, the gross cost to the consultant of such expenses shall be treated as a reimbursable expense.
Funding Source: It is anticipated that the contract will be financed with funds provided by the European Union under the "Enhancement of the Turkish Energy Sector in line with EU Energy Strategies" programme.
Eligibility: There are no eligibility restrictions.
Consultant Profile: Corporate services are required.
The Consultant will be a firm or a group of firms able to demonstrate good knowledge of the Turkish market, relevant technical skills and ability to cover wide geographical area. The Consultant, at company level or individual experts’ level should be certified by the Turkish government to conduct energy audits for the industrial and the building sectors according to the requirements of the local legislation.
The Consultant's team will be structured to incorporate a strong local expert base (at least 50% of experts). An extensive use of qualified locally based personnel is envisaged as the bulk of the assignment will be conducted in the field.
The Consultant's team should be able to communicate effectively in English and work in both the English and Turkish languages. The Key Expert positions are the following:
Project Manager, preferably with (a) extensive experience in project management; (b) international technical experience in ResE and/or RE including related ResE and RE financing schemes, (c) expertise in project implementation planning, (d) experience in working with banks, and (e) language skills (fluent spoken and written English and Turkish is essential).
Deputy Project Manager: preferably with (a) engineering background and extensive technical experience in industrial ResE and/or RE (b) demonstrated team leadership experience (c) good communication skills (d) experience in communicating with PFIs will be an advantage, and (e) language skills (fluent spoken and written English and Turkish is essential)
Chief Engineer: preferably with (a) extensive international project experience including overseeing the work of a team of engineers; (b) previous experience of explaining engineering measures in financial terms, (c) extensive technical experience in assessing ResE and/or RE projects (d) language skills (fluent spoken and written English and Turkish is essential)
Environmental Expert: preferably with a) 7 years of experience of conducting environmental due diligence and environmental impact assessment for a variety of sustainable energy projects, and b) knowledge of Turkish and EU environmental legislation and regulations to be applied.
Procurement Expert: preferably with a) in-depth knowledge about the Turkish national procurement and concessions law, b) experience in applying IFI procurement procedures and rules, and c) experience in applying a and b above in the financing of TurSEFF eligible technologies, including resource efficiency investments.
Pool of Local Engineers: with (a) strong knowledge of renewable energy projects, (b) proven experience in the development of sustainable energy projects, including: (i) conducting resource efficiency audits and validation of renewable energy resources, (ii) assessment of project investment plan including its risks and mitigation strategy, (iii) commercially based sustainable energy projects financing, and (iv) calculation of energy savings and greenhouse gas emission reduction for such projects; (c) language skills (fluent spoken and written English would be an advantage).
PFI Relationship Managers(s): preferably with extensive experience as corporate finance expert, bank loan officer or economist with specialisation in financial analysis (including capital investment appraisal), (b) proven expertise in financial structuring of cash flow-based lending projects, (c) experience in working with banks, and (d) language skills (fluent Turkish essential, fluent spoken and written English would be an advantage).
Local Marketing Expert(s): preferably with a) relevant professional experience; b) references to marketing successful projects in both a business to business as well as consumer marketing contexts; c) experience of marketing financial products and/or sustainable energy products and d) language skills (fluent Turkish essential, fluent spoken and written English would be an advantage).
IT Expert: proven experience with the design, implementation and operation of web-based information, transaction and monitoring systems.
Administrative support: An individual, experienced in providing comprehensive administrative support for highly complex projects, fluent in both Turkish and English languages.
Submission Requirements: Interested consultants are hereby invited to submit expressions of interest. In order to determine the qualifications and competence of consulting firms seeking to be shortlisted, the information submitted should include the following:
a) Company profile, organisation and staffing (max. 4 pages). In the case of associations between two firms or more, please include name, address and profile of the participating firm(s). The lead firm must be clearly identified, as per Contact Sheet (link provided below). Company brochures are not required.
b) Details of experience of similar assignments undertaken in the previous five years, including their locations; focus on your role in similar assignments; focus on your role in similar assignments in Turkey/Middle East/North Africa or similar.
c) CVs of staff that could be available to work on the assignment.
d) a table printed in landscape listing the proposed experts, indicating the years of relevant professional experience, nationality, level of language skills (English and Turkish), a short qualification in relation to the requested knowledge and experiences.
e) Completed Declaration and Contact Sheet, the template for which is available from the following web-link:
http://www.ebrd.com/pages/workingwithus/procurement/notices/csu/contact_sheet.doc
The above information should not exceed 20 pages excluding CVs.
Expressions of Interest should be submitted, in English, electronically through eSelection only. The complete Expression of Interest (including CVs and Contact Sheet) will be one file (searchable pdf or Word, not exceeding 4MB) to be uploaded to eSelection.
Link to eSelection: https://eselection.ebrd.com/suite/apps
EBRD Contact Person:
Yvonne Wilkinson
Technical Cooperation
Tel: +44 207 338 7123
Email: wilkinsy@ebrd.com
Note: Following this invitation for Expressions of Interest, a shortlist of qualified consultants will be formally invited to submit proposals. Shortlisting and selection will be subject to the availability of funding.
The shortlist criteria and weighting will be as follows:
a) Firm's previous project experience in similar assignments, preferably including preparation and assessment of renewable energy and resource efficiency projects in Turkey (25%)
b) Firm's previous project experience in working with financial institutions, preferably including product development and marketing expertise (25%)
c) CVs of Key Experts, as listed above (50%)
