Service Center Page, Jobs

International Consultant in Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Sources .

Vacancy Number: Pr19/01900

Location:	Chisinau, Moldova
Application Deadline:	16 Oct 2019, 14:00 (GMT+2:00)
Starting date:	01 Nov 2019
Reference to the project:	Moldova Sustainable Green Cities - Catalyzing investment in sustainable green cities in the Republic of Moldova using a holistic integrated urban planning approach
Expected Duration of Assignment:	85 working days from November 2019 to July 2020
Supporting Documents: Terms of Reference Individual Consultant Procurement Notice Offeror's Letter confirming Interest and Availability UNDP General Conditions of Individual Contract

Mr. Simion Berzoi.

Background

The Czech-UNDP Partnership for SDGs (hereafter CUP) project “Transfer of Czech experience in the development and implementation of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Sources in multi-storey building” is linked with the UNDP/GEF project “Moldova Sustainable Green Cities – Catalyzing investment in sustainable green cities in the Republic of Moldova using a holistic integrated urban planning approach”,  to be implemented during 2018–2022 years.

The objective is to contribute to the Green Cities project development objective and intended CO₂ reduction (200 ktons of CO₂eq. from direct GHG emission reductions). The residential building energy efficiency and renewable energy use demo project aims to demonstrate the cost benefits of the energy efficiency refurbishment of a multi-storey residential building, by involving the Home Owners Associations to invest in low carbon infrastructure. The residential building will be selected based on a comprehensive legal and institutional assessment in the energy and building sectors.

Urban residential housing stock currently accounts for about 40% of the total residential floor area. Its energy consumption and climate-related impact is exacerbated due to considerable heat and electricity losses from the distribution grids and the buildings.  As of 2013, close to 80% of all residential buildings in urban areas were connected to district heating (DH) with heat losses already in distribution estimated at 22% of the total heat supplied, which is well below the 5-10% losses registered in case of modern, well maintained, DH networks. There are around 6,900 multi-storey (multi-apartment) residential buildings in Moldova, out of which 70% are managed by the local government, 7-8% by condominium associations and 17-19% by cooperatives and homeowners’ associations (HOA). Some 50-66% of the common properties of private housing stock has remained under the ownership of local authorities.

Nearly 50% of the multi-family multi-storey housing stock has been operated for more than forty (40) years without rehabilitation, hence the level of infrastructure degradation has reached the safety threshold. Moreover, above 70% of multi-family apartment buildings have very low energy performance (especially buildings built during 1950 -1980s): energy loss account for up to 50% of heat consumption. At the moment, the residential sector of Moldova is the largest energy user with 40% share of the national energy consumption and around 70% of energy consumption related to heating. While the average Moldovan household spends 30-50% of its total budget on heating and the country use of energy per unit of GDP is seven times higher than the EU27, the residential building sector has over 60% of energy saving potential that could be explored through good governance at national and local level. Clearly, without a good governance that promotes viable and functional condominium home-owners associations, energy efficiency measures in residential sector are difficult to be implemented.

Most energy savings are obtained when the solutions are applied to the entire building based on a common decision of apartment owners. For larger size projects lending facilities must be available in order to enable implementation of building level solutions. But here there are several barriers that knock-out this type of projects:

• Home owners’ associations lack acceptable guarantees to commercial financial institutions.
• Commercial offer of financing capital is very high - 18-24% in national currency and 7-14% in EUR or USD. Effective rates are even higher due to various commissioning. Foreign currency lending is associated with the risk of high currency volatility that in some conditions may increase the costs of financial resources even higher than MDL lending.
• Lack of support options for owners that do not have any capacity to invest in EE retrofits.
• Commercial Banks do not recognize HOAs as creditworthy clients, as they do not possess assets that will be accepted by them as adequate collateral for extending loans. Mortgage is neither workable nor acceptable option for condominiums in the new EU member states and the same could be expected for Moldova as well;

The ongoing World Bank District Heating Efficiency Improvement Project is supporting the Government of Moldova on the district heating debt restructuring, while also providing technical assistance for corporate restructuring process of the newly integrated utility, Termoelectrica. In order to improve the operational efficiency and financial viability of the DH company and to improve the quality and reliability of heating services delivered to the population of Chisinau, the project has also invested in various supply side energy efficiency and retrofit measures such as (a) modernization of selected pumping stations to reduce electricity consumption and facilitate more efficient variable flow operation mode of the DH system; (b) rehabilitate selected segments of the distribution network; (c) replace old and inefficient central heat substations (CHS) with modern fully automated individual building level heat substations (IHS); and (d) reconnect about 40 disconnected public buildings to improve the usage of the DH system. Much of the technical assistance activities of the World Bank’s and other donors’ energy related activities have also been supported by the Swedish Government.

Scope of work

The International consultant in Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Sources under this activity, is requested to support the UNDP CO to test the market for finding/analyzing and implementing financial mechanisms for residential sector investment in Energy Efficiency related to loans repayment instruments (Energy Performance Contracting; on-bill Repayment, Leasing, Public Super ESCO), as well as, to assess realistically the potential for each financial mechanism, determine barriers and drivers related to Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Sources promotion in residential sector. International consultant shall collaborate with Energy Efficiency Agency in order to synchronize the joint efforts related to Efficiency related loans repayment instruments.

The consultant will be supported in his work by the Green Cities Project Business Officer, National consultant in EE RES. and will report to the UNDP CO and Project manager.

Under present assessment, Consultant will have the following responsibilities:

• Analyzing and implementing financial mechanisms in residential sector investments for Energy Efficiency measures related to loans repayment instruments (Energy Performance Contracting; on-bill Repayment, Leasing, Public Super ESCO);
• Strengthening the role of the Home Owner Associations (HOAs) to manage their buildings and common property and to contribute to the development of their surroundings, while also supporting them to get their legal status as credit-worthy legal entities with the option to access affordable financing for the required (EE) investments;
• Providing the most feasible approach to the energy efficient refurbishment of a demo-building in private or residential sector, through EPC/ESCO modality or another EPC type of agreement;
• Strengthening the role of the Energy Service Companies (ESCOs) through a more detailed technical assistance in developing new lending mechanisms and engaging in project assessment.
• Increasing ESCO capacities through demo project so they can showcase their expertise and gain practical experience

Requirements for experience

Academic Qualifications:

• Master’s degree in Energy, Environment, Law, Business Administration, Economics, Engineering, or other closely related field. PhD is an asset.

Experience:

• At least 5 (five) years’ work experience in providing advice to energy-efficiency and RES projects in the Europe and CIS region;
• Experience in work with performance-based energy efficiency projects. Proven knowledge of energy performance contracting, ESCO mechanisms;
• Experience in working with international technical assistance projects in Czech Republic would be an asset;
• Good knowledge of the international state-of-the-art approaches and best practices in Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Sources promotion in residential sector.

Competencies:

• Good analytical and problem-solving skills and the related ability for adaptive management with prompt action on the conclusion and recommendations coming out from the assignment
• Demonstrated understanding of issues related to gender; experience in gender sensitive evaluation and analysis;
• Proven experience in preparation of written reports in an accurate and concise manner in English;
• Excellent computer literacy (Word, Excel, Internet, Power Point);
• Writing and verbal skills in English; knowledge of Romanian or Russian would be an asset.

Documents to be included

1. Proposal:

• Explaining why they are the most suitable for the work;
• Provide a brief methodology on how they will approach and conduct the work (if applicable);

2. Financial proposal;
3. CV including past experience in similar projects and at least 3 references;
4. Offeror’s Letter confirming Interest and Availability.

Financial proposal

Lump sum contracts

The financial proposal shall specify a total lump sum amount, and payment terms around specific and measurable (qualitative and quantitative) deliverables (i.e. whether payments fall in installments or upon completion of the entire contract). Payments are based upon output, i.e. upon delivery of the services specified in the TOR.  In order to assist the requesting unit in the comparison of financial proposals, the financial proposal will include a breakdown of this lump sum amount (including fees, taxes, travel costs, accommodation costs, communication, and number of anticipated working days).