Oldham Green New Deal Partnership

Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council ("the Council") is seeking to develop a long-term energy partnership with a Development Partner. The Development Partner will work in collaboration with the Council, key stakeholders and organisations to bring about the transformation and decarbonisation of Oldham's energy infrastructure. The Development Partner shall work to originate, define, develop, finance, deliver and operate a broad range of decarbonisation projects and initiatives across Oldham, with support from the Council. The Development Partner is expected to leverage its expertise, experience, capacity and capabilities to innovate and generate holistic and deliverable energy solutions, and to exploit its unique apex position within Oldham's energy system to develop and implement an innovative business model which maximises the benefit of technological and commercial synergies between different low carbon Asset Classes. The Strategic Energy Partnership's (SEP) key anchor project is the Heat Network Reference Scheme including the existing St Mary's scheme, which may serve as the foundation for a potential Zonal Heat Network. The SEP Agreement will set out a number of requirements which the heat network project must meet in order to proceed into an approvals gateway process. If the project proceeds beyond the development period (i.e. is "approved" as part of the approvals gateway process), the Council and Development Partner will become shareholders in a Project Company, albeit that the Council's shareholding will be limited to a "Golden Share". The Golden Share will simply allow the Council to exercise control in relation to a limited number of reserved matters including carbon intensity, reporting and tariffs. If the Heat Network Reference Scheme project is approved at the end of the development period, the Project Company will be the supplier of heat to a number of public and private sector bodies in the borough under separate heat connection and supply agreements. The potential heat customers for early phases include Oldham Council (details of which can be found in Appendix R (Oldham Low Carbon Heat Network OBC / Customer Letter of Intent OMBC) of the Invitation To Tender (ITT), First Choice Homes Oldham (FCHO), The Oldham College, Royal Oldham Hospital and other NHS sites and the new Muse residential developments in Oldham Town Centre. For further information on potential customers for later phases please see the Zone Market Prospectus in Appendix S of the ITT. For the wider borough, potential customers also include schools and Registered Housing Providers. The Council has secured an £8.78 million grant from the Green Heat Network Fund (GHNF) to support this initiative, with plans for future expansion under the Advanced Zoning Programme (AZP). A portion of the GHNF grant funding that the Council has obtained from the DESNZ will be used to commission early works which will then be adopted by the Development Partner under the SEP Agreement. If the heat network project is approved in accordance with the SEP Agreement, the Council intends to pass on the residual capital GHNF grant funding to the Project Company under an On Grant Agreement. The procurement documents include a Project Information Document (PID) which provides a thorough overview of the SEP and the opportunities beyond the heat network. The PID identifies several site-level projects on Council-owned assets which could be included in the SEP's Strategic Programmes for the first 5-year Strategic Business Plan (SBP) based on the information currently available. These projects include roof-mounted solar PV at four sites, solar car ports at three sites, ground mounted PV at three sites and a gasifying biomass CHP at one site, as well as an opportunity for Operation and Maintenance and Power Purchase Agreement for one site - more details can be found in Section 10 of the PID. The SEP Agreement will also set out a number of requirements which the non-heat work projects …