National Consultant in distributed energy systems (energy cooperatives).

Vacancy Number: Pr19/01942

Location:Chisinau, Moldova
Application Deadline: 20 Dec 2019, 16:00 (GMT+2:00)
Type of Contract:Individual Contract
Starting date: 30 Dec 2019
Reference to the project: Advisory Services for Programme Development
Expected Duration of Assignment:up to 50 working days till June 2020
Supporting Documents:
Terms of Reference
Individual Consultant Procurement Notice
OFFEROR’S LETTER TO UNDP CONFIRMING INTEREST AND AVAILABILITY FOR THE INDIVIDUAL CONTRACTOR (IC) ASSIGNMENT
UNDP General Conditions of Individual Contract

Contacts:

Ms. Silvia Pana-Carp.

silvia.pana-carp@undp.org


Background

The dramatic decrease of specific technologies such as wind and solar power in past 8 years and similar plummeting in costs for storage technologies, EU started to rethink its energy and climate change goals by focusing more on decentralized energy systems, small scale local production and consumption, digitalization of energy services, decarbonized energy mix and citizenship empowerment with the benefits of the transition to a cleaner energy future.  The EU document that encapsulates all these changes and will determine the EU energy strategic directions by 2030 is called “EU Clean Energy Package” and is expected to enter in force by 2020. Win-win situations could be identified for Moldova to profit from these changes. 

The Republic of Moldova is poorly endowed with conventional energy resources, and highly dependent on imported energy. The electricity sector of Moldova is fully dependent on external energy sources. Domestic supply sources consist of several combined heat and power (CHP) plants covering up to 20% of domestic consumption. The rest of demand is met by electricity procured either by imports from the Cuciurgani-Moldavskaya GRES gas-fired power plant, owned by the Russian company Inter-RAO and located in Transnistria or from Ukrainian suppliers such as DTEK. Similarly, Moldova is still largely dependent on gas supplies from the Russian Federation. In 2016, out of 1.038 Bcm of contracted gas imports, over 99% were acquired from Russia’s Gazprom. Another 2 Bcm were delivered by Gazprom to Transnistria and mainly used for electricity generation. Only around 25% of primary energy consumption is supplied through indigenous resources, 98% of which is biomass, mostly used for heating purposes in the rural areas.

Renewable energy could be one solution to tackle the energy challenges of Moldova. In this regard, Moldova committed to reach a binding target of 17% of energy from renewable sources in gross final energy consumption by 2020. By 2018 this target has been already achieved. The main source of energy that allowed Moldova to achieve its commitments relates to biomass. A significant contribution in this regard was brought by the project of UNDP “Energy and biomass” and financed by EU between the years of 2011 – 2018. This suggests that Moldova could start thinking, planning and committing to more ambitious goals by 2030.

For the period 2021 – 2030 the Energy Strategy of Moldova has three specific objectives:(i) to ensure an enhanced use of renewable sources; (ii) to improve energy efficiency; (iii) to introduce intelligent power networks. As the Strategy recognizes for the Republic of Moldova, the use of local renewable energy sources has first of all the goal to ensure the security of supplies. Other public social and economic benefits of the RES development, such as a lower impact on the environment, the creation of new industries and enterprises, positive structural consequences on regional economies and the creation of jobs, are good reasons to support RES in the country. 

In 2018, Moldova started together with IRENA a Renewable Readiness Assessment of the Republic of Moldova. This exercise aims to identify the needed actions to overcome the barriers that impede the development of this sector in Moldova. Moldovan Government also is working actively to update the Energy Strategy 2030. This would be the momentum for Moldova to be bolder and pay more attention to distributed energy systems, business models focusing on energy communities at local level, having in this regard specific targets, policy and support mechanisms for this sub-sector. In this respect the energy cooperatives could have a transformative impact on the whole Moldovan power sector. The main implications in case of an energy cooperative would be to create a source of local development, energy self-sufficiency, potentially smaller energy bills. The impact would be less energy imports, less debts and more local production, transparency and control over energy resources.

Scope of work

The overall scope of the assignment is to investigate the best practices of innovative business models focused on distributed energy systems in Czech Republic and West European countries and identify the best ways to replicate them in Moldova.

The national consultant will support the international consultant and assist him during field visits in Moldova, collection and analysis of information, interaction with national institutions and local communities, meetings with energy market participants and other donors active in the energy sector of Moldova. Up to 5 visits in the field during the assignment might be needed.

For detailed information, please refer to the Terms of Reference. 

 

Requirements for experience

Academic qualifications:

  • At least master’s degree in power engineering, energy systems, energy economics, energy management or other related fields.

Experience:

  • At least ten (10) years of professional experience in energy industry, consulting services, research, design of decentralised or distributed energy systems and/or other related fields;
  • At least five (5) years of experience in the international state-of-the-art approaches and best practices in distributed energy systems, modelling, policy design.  
  • Previous working experience with international consultants, donors, bodies responsible for public policies in the field of energy and research/consulting projects will be an asset.
  • Demonstrated experience and success in the engagement of and working with the private sector and local communities on tasks related to distributed energy systems.  

Language skills

  • Proficiency (verbal and written) in English and Romanian; working level of Russian will be an asset.

Documents to be included

Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications: 

  1. Proposal: Brief description of approach to work/technical proposal of why the individual considers him/herself as the most suitable for the assignment, and a proposed methodology on how they will approach and complete the assignment.
  2. CV, including information about past experience in similar assignments and contact details for at least 3 referees;
  3. Financial proposal (in USD, specifying the total lump sum amount as well as the requested amount of the fee per day).
  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 all related costs e.g. fees, taxes, travel, phone calls etc.) and the number of anticipated working days. The consultant shall bare costs for all supplies needed for data collection and data processing including possession of his own personal computer. 

 Travel

All envisaged travel costs must be included in the financial proposal. This includes all travel to join duty station/repatriation travel. In general, UNDP should not accept travel costs exceeding those of an economy class ticket. Should the IC wish to travel on a higher class he/she should do so using their own resources.

In the case of unforeseeable travel, payment of travel costs including tickets, lodging and terminal expenses should be agreed upon, between the respective business unit and Individual Consultant, prior to travel and will be reimbursed.