Oldham Low Carbon Heat Network Joint Venture Partner (Oldham Green New Deal)

MARKET ENGAGEMENT: The Council is seeking a Joint Venture partner to deliver the Oldham Low Carbon District Heat Network project as part of the Oldham Green New Deal (OGND). As the Council seeks to refine its approach and strategy; market engagement has been conducted previously (as outlined in the documents available to download) however, the purpose of this exercise is to engage with the market about the delivery of the Oldham Low Carbon District Heat Network (DHN): An opportunity for a low carbon district heat network has been identified that delivers heat to council, public, commercial, and residential (including social housing) buildings in Oldham. The network will deliver approximately 30 GWh/a of heat across Oldham with potential expansion identified up to 60 GWh/a. The DHN proposed is an expansion of an existing St Mary's network with an additional Energy Centre at Rhodes Bank that utilises air source heat pump technology with potential for additional heat sources such as sewer source and minewater source, which are currently being explored. The Council seeks responses from and engagement with; heat network developers / potential infrastructure partners (which can deliver the Oldham Low Carbon District Heat Network through a Joint-Venture partnership with the Council) in sufficient depth so as to enable the Council to proceed to tender stage. The market engagement pack sets out the Council's thinking so far in terms of an approach for bringing private sector investment into the borough and achieving best value for existing projects and programmes which are already funded either by the Council, via external grant funding, or by the community energy sector. For the avoidance of any doubt, this (Chest project reference DN683638) is a brand-new market engagement exercise, fully independent of and separate to any previous soft market testing exercise previously conducted by the Council in 2021: (https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/025236-2021) and 2022 (https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/026347-2022?origin=Dashboard) The market engagement documents contain a significant amount of information to convey the background and future opportunity for the Oldham Low Carbon Heat Network Joint Venture Partner. They also contain a number of questions to which we would be very pleased and appreciative to receive responses to from any organisation interested in this opportunity, including any organisations which responded to the previous rounds of market engagement. There are significant differences in the content of this new market engagement pack (DN683638) compared with those previously issued as the Council works towards shaping its strategy for its planned procurement. For the avoidance of any doubt this market engagement exercise will not serve as any kind of shortlisting. Future procurement documents will be made publicly available. Following the receipt of responses to this market engagement exercise, the Council reserves the right to hold discussions with any number of respondents where at its absolute discretion the Council considers further exploration or clarification of the content of their response would be beneficial. The deadline for responses to the market engagement questions is 12.00 noon Tuesday 5th September 2023. It is not possible at this stage to provide an indicative contract value for this opportunity. Please refer to the market engagement documents to understand the scale and duration of the opportunity for your own commercial estimations. The Council cannot confirm future procurement dates at this stage for the Joint Venture partner but would hope to commence the procurement of an Independent Assurance Provider (IAP) before the end of 2023 with a view to making an IAP appointment before April 2024 ( https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/026273-2022?origin=Dashboard ). The aim would then be to procure the Joint Venture partner without delay with the support of the IAP.