Solomon Islands expand deadline for hydropower project
The Government of the Solomon Islands (SIG) has extended the deadline to submit expressions of interest for the Tina River hydroelectric power project on a build-own-operate-transfer (BOOT) basis.
The deadline has been extended to 31 July 2014.
SIG has appointed IFC, a member of the World Bank Group as transaction advisor to assist in project preparation and in the tendering process.
The selected developer is expected to design, finance, build, own and operate the project and sell capacity and energy to the Solomon Islands Electricity Authority (SIEA) under a long-term power purchase agreement. The project will be located on the Tina River east of Honiara. A detailed feasibility study has been completed by Entura and will be available to candidates during the formal tendering process.
The project is expected to have an installed capacity of 20MW and will include a Roller Compacted Concrete (RCC) dam of approximately 50m height; a 3.3km headrace tunnel of approximately 3m diameter and a Power house with 4 x 5MW Francis turbines. Ancillary works will include a transmission line of approximately 22 kilometres length.
The project is expected to contribute significantly to reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by displacing fossil fuel based energy generation. Hence the project could avail of carbon credit benefits under the Clean Development Mechanism.
In order to identify potential candidates for a competitive tendering process expressions of interest are sought from power developers with experience in developing similar hydropower projects sized between 15 and 100 MW.
Interested parties are invited to submit an Expression of Interest (EOI) that includes a brief company description to the email addresses set out below to register their interest. Parties who register their interest will be given the opportunity to obtain the formal Request for Proposals with bidding documents, including any pre-qualification requirements and other information. Interested parties that submitted Pre-Expressions of Interest in response to the 2011 Invitation for Pre-Expressions of Interest are already registered but may submit an EOI if they wish to.
Expressions of interest, to be submitted in English, should include:
A description of the company’s activities (max. 3 pages) during the last 10 years, including information on:
- Participation in infrastructure projects involving a Build-Own-Operate-Transfer or similar private sector participation structure,
- Details of hydropower plants currently in operation,
- Experience in hydropower design and construction, and
- Experience in financing hydropower projects
