Senegal issues 100 MW solar tender

The state of Senegal has issued a two-phase open tender for private investors who wish to participate in a pre-qualification process, which will be looking for independent electricity producers for the conception, financing, construction, and running of PV plants that have a combined capacity of 100 MWc. They will be located in Touba in the Diourbel Region, Kahone in the Kaolack region, and Niakhar in the Fatick Region, all in Senegal.

In line with the legislatives and regulatory dispositions, the agreement would lead to the signing of energy purchase contract with the Senegalese Electricity Society (Société d’Electricité du Sénégal (SENELEC) with the signatories receiving energy production licences. These production licenses would be issued by the Minister in charge of energy, in line with the guidelines issued alongside the tenders sent out by the Electricity Sector Regulatory Commission (Commission de Régulation du Secteur de l'Électricité (la CRSE)).

The state has mandated the International Finance Corporation (IFC) to act as principal transaction advisor. The state will structure the project using the Scaling Solar initiative of the World Bank. Scaling Solar is an open, competitive and transparent process to facilitate the rapid development of large-scale solar projects funded by the private sector. It enables these projects to be launched in a short period of time by offering a range of advisory services, contracts, financing solutions, guarantees and insurance.

The first step in the bidding process for the project is a prequalification of potential bidders with the experience, expertise and financial resources required to carry out large independent solar energy production projects in short periods of time.

As part of the second stage of the process, pre-qualified bidders will be invited to submit an offer in accordance to the tender document to be issued by the CRSE for the award of the project. In order to be pre-qualified, potential bidders must prove to the satisfaction of the CRSE that they meet the criteria mentioned in the prequalification document, which is the subject of this prequalification notice, including technical, financial and legal criteria.

At the end of the first pre-qualification phase, the CRSE will draw up a list of pre-qualified tenderers. Only pre-qualified bidders will be eligible to participate in the second and final stages of the selection process.