LRPS-2022-9178341 East Asia & Pacific regional solar energy market assessment

UNICEF East Asia and Pacific Regional (EAPRO) office has now issued a Request for Proposals in reference to LRPS-2022-9178341 to seek a qualified institution to conduct East Asia & Pacific regional solar energy market assessment.

Background:

Given the dramatic reduction in the costs of solar technology globally, and the potential of solar power to provide sustainable and resilient services, UNICEF has made the commitment to scale-up the use of renewable energy across all sectors and for its own operations. Solar power will ensure the sustainability and long-term impact of UNICEF’s interventions in water and sanitation, health and education; and help us reach UNICEF’s Strategic Plan targets and the Sustainable Development Goals. Despite its importance, reliable and affordable electricity access is often an overlooked building block of quality WASH, healthcare and educational services. Some of the solutions to increase energy access in healthcare and educational facilities include extending the grid network or connecting to decentralized solutions such as mini-grids or stand-alone solar PV systems. Decentralized solar energy solutions are promising options that can also simultaneously transform the sectors to a low carbon and climate resilient development pathway. This is a powerful benefit to children in the face of a changing climate and degrading environment.

Objectives, Purpose & Expected results

The purpose of this consultancy is to assess the market landscape and demand for the provision of solar energy in UNICEF’s key sectors (WASH, education and healthcare) in the East Asia and Pacific (EAP) region, to generate the evidence base to inform UNICEF’s value add and future interventions to meet several Sustainable Development Goals. The market assessment will contribute to UNICEF EAPRO’s upcoming energy strategy and support the scale up from renewable energy activities as a component of existing UNICEF programmes, to developing renewable energy programmes that deliver on UNICEF’s mandate.

The specific objectives are to:

1. Support the definition of UNICEF’s role in scaling up solar energy usage and low carbon resilience building, climate mitigation and adaptation activities within the provision of basic services for WASH, education and healthcare for children in the region;

2. Provide market data and evidence to motivate for UNICEF’s value add and future interventions for solar energy services within the key UNICEF sectors. This evidence will include distinct areas for UNICEF to incentive the solar energy markets and investors to focus on renewable energy provisions in its key thematic areas, leading to fundraising and partnerships for investment from energy access and climate change mitigation angles; and

3. Strengthen UNICEF’s ability to work with its country offices and national counterparts to build up evidence and provide analysis to support UNICEF’s advocacy work in the area of climate change mitigation, renewable energy investment and usage and low carbon resilience building and development from a child-centered lens.

Location and Duration

•             The assessment will be carried out via desk research and additional stakeholder consultations for the 18 countries. The contractor is expected to liaise with UNICEF Country Offices (COs) via virtual consultations.

•             Duration: a period of 6 months from the date of signing the contract. EAPRO will review draft reports for quality assurance and provide feedback on the deliverables within 10 working days.

For more details, please refer to the attached Terms of Reference.

This tender will be run through the UNICEF e-submissions system.

By clicking on the blue ‘Express Interest’ button in the UNGM tender notice, the full UNICEF e-submission system instructions to bidders document (including instructions on how to access the tender documents and submit an Offer) will be automatically emailed to the ‘contact persons’ included in your UNGM registration.  Alternatively, the full UNICEF e-submission system instructions to bidders document is publicly available on the UNICEF supply internet pages here: https://www.unicef.org/supply/index_procurement_policies.html

In the tender management site, if you navigate to the documents tab and opt in to confirm your intention to submit a Bid – you will then see the mandatory placeholders for documents that must be attached prior to submitting your Offer (you will also see if there are any mandatory questionnaires to complete). As such, you are recommended to `opt in` well before the submission deadline so you are clear exactly what documents are required to be uploaded prior to completing your submission.

Please note that in order to access the tender documentation through UNICEF’s e-submissions system, vendors must: (i) be registered with UNICEF in UNGM as a company/NGO; (ii) have successfully completed all mandatory information currently required by UNGM when registering.

Please ensure that any files submitted as part of your Bid are not corrupt or damaged in any way.  Please exercise particular caution when using compressed files.  Any corrupt or damaged files may lead to your Bid being invalidated. 

All vendors are strongly recommended to regularly log in to the UNICEF e-submissions system to check for any deadline extensions, new clarifications, new correspondence or updated tender documents relating to this tender.

Should you have any questions to the RFP, please submit your queries to Sawanee Theradissayapan at stheradissayapan@unicef.org with copy to jbehr@unicef.org, osrimanotham@unicef.org  and psookchareon@unicef.org  no later than 21 October 2022 – so that all queries could be clarified and circulated to all bidders before the deadline.

We look forward to receiving your proposals within a given timeline.

Best regards,

UNICEF Supply Team