350833-2020 - Competition

Tees Valley Energy Recovery Facility Project

Hartlepool Borough Council is seeking to procure, on behalf of itself and six other local authorities (Darlington Borough Council, Durham County Council, Middlesbrough Council, Newcastle City Council, Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council and Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council), the development, construction, commissioning, financing and operation of an ERF to receive and treat all of the residual municipal solid waste collected by each of the local authorities.

The ERF will be required to have capacity to at least the Councils’ forecast residual waste over the term, and accommodate changes in waste growth leading to an expected processing capacity of at least 450 000 tonnes of waste per annum towards the end of the term. As a sustainable solution, the ERF will be required to generate electricity from the waste treated and is to be constructed with capacity for heat offtake.

Hartlepool Borough Council is procuring a solution for the design, build, financing, commissioning, testing and operation of an ERF on behalf of itself and six other neighbouring local authorities (Darlington Borough Council, Durham County Council, Middlesbrough Council, Newcastle City Council, Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council and Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council) (together, the Councils). By 2025/26, it is forecast that the Councils will be producing circa 397 000 tonnes of residual waste per annum. The ERF will be required to have a capacity that is sufficient to receive and treat all of the residual municipal solid waste from each of the Councils as forecast over the term, with any spare capacity being used to treat similar waste from third parties.

The Councils are seeking a contractor who can provide a facility based on proven technology to dispose of and treat residual municipal solid waste and with the capability to generate electricity and heat for the local economy, thereby minimising diversion to landfill and climate impacts and maximising value generated from the waste treated. The successful contractor will also be responsible for all handling (including storage, marketing and recycling) of any residues from the facility. Residues must be treated in such a manner as to minimise diversion to landfill and climate impacts and maximise recovery (value from) these materials. The ERF must be constructed on a 10 hectare brownfield site at Grangetown owned by the South Tees Development Corporation which comes with the benefit of outline planning permission. Comprehensive ground condition investigations are being undertaken and the results of these will be made available to all Tenderers.

The Councils' intention is to award a contract to the successful contractor in December 2021 for a 29 year term (including 3-4 years construction phase and at least 25 years operational phase) with an option to extend up to a further 11 years. The successful contractor will be required to accept and manage all contract waste from 1 April 2026. The Councils will incorporate a special purpose vehicle project company during the procurement process to act as the contracting entity.

The ERF will be designed to comply with Specification and all relevant planning permission and environmental permit conditions and will be required to achieve a sustained operation of at least 93 % availability. The contract will incorporate a performance management framework to incentivise optimal performance. Contract waste composition risk will sit with the contractor and the design of the ERF will be expected to take into account future changes in contract waste composition, including but not limited to the impact of proposed separate weekly food waste collections and enhanced recycling capture on residues.

The contractor will be required to maintain a single comprehensive electronic information management system, accessible by the Councils, for all information related to delivery of the works and services at the ERF including contract waste data, performance monitoring data (including vehicle turnaround times), health and safety, environmental and information on complaints and handling of these.

A key requirement of the Councils is that the proposed solution for the ERF must, where possible, support regional employment and regeneration as well as assisting the Councils in their strategies to reduce the climate change and carbon impacts of waste management and maximising recycling and recovery of waste. The successful contractor will be obliged to comply with all committed outcomes in a social value plan to be provided as part of its tender response.

Further details on the specification and other requirements can be found in the procurement documents which can be accessed in the ProContract tendering portal at https://procontract.due-north.com.

Description of renewals:

Candidates for invitation to the award stage of the procurement will be selected on the basis of responses to a number of selection criteria which evaluate the economic and financial standing of candidates as well as technical and professional capability and experience. These criteria include scored case study questions to focus on relevant capability and experience of candidates and which can be summarised as follows:

1) previous delivery of an ERF (including design, build and operation);

2) track record of operating an ERF;

3) delivery to a tight timetable;

4) information Management System functionality;

5) evidence of working with public sector/local authority clients;

6) delivery of added value/social value;

7) maintenance of business continuity; and

8) contract Management.

Further details on these, including relative weightings, can be found in the procurement documents.

Description of options:

All completed responses to the SQ must be received in electronic form via the ProContract tendering portal by no later than 10:00 GMT on 7 September 2020. Responses submitted by post or e-mail will not be accepted. Any queries regarding this procurement must be submitted electronically via the ProContract tendering portal. The Councils reserve the right not to award a contract for any reason.

Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) Contractor exclusivity will not be a requirement for the selection stage of this procurement. However, if successful at selection stage, bidders will be required to formally select an EPC Contractor to partner with on an exclusive basis (i.e. any one EPC contractor may only be involved in one bid at the dialogue/award stage of this procurement).

Where and to the extent that an EPC Contractor is involved in more than one of the tenders which is successful at selection stage, that EPC Contractor will be required to select which of those tenders it will continue to be involved with at the dialogue/award stage of the procurement. A period of 14 days will then be given to any bidders who have been successful at selection stage but are no longer partnered with an EPC Contractor to source an alternative EPC Contractor and to resubmit their bid(s) on that basis. The resubmitted bids will then be re-evaluated to ensure that they remain in the highest scoring bids at selection stage and so eligible to be invited to the dialogue/award stage. For further details on this process, please see the selection questionnaire and other procurement documents, which can be accessed at http:procontract.due-north.com.

At final tender stage, certain provisions of the contract must be fully accepted by all remaining tenderers as drafted (Fixed Provisions) and cannot be subject to amendment or qualification in final tender submissions. All remaining tenderers at final tender stage will be required to provide formal confirmation that these Fixed Provisions are accepted and failure to do so or any attempt to qualify any confirmation will be deemed to be a non-compliant response.

Tenderers will be required to obtain full planning permission for the site. Confirmation of receipt of full planning permission will be a condition for appointment as preferred bidder and must be in place by the time final tender submission evaluations have been concluded.

The Councils reserve the right to modify the rules and procedures as set out in the procurement documents and/ or to amend any of the requirements of this procurement at any stage.

Precise information on deadline(s) for review procedures: