National Framework Agreement for the Provision of Carbon and Energy Infrastructure Upgrade Services

The Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (COCH) and its partner the Carbon and Energy Fund Ltd has established a framework of capable contractors to provide carbon and energy resilience and service improvements to the public sector in the UK. In some cases, this will involve the installation and management of new or upgraded infrastructure, and in others a guaranteed upgrade in services and resilience provided as the contractor feels appropriate. See www.carbonandenergyfund.net ↗ for information of how the previous asset based framework has worked in the UK.

Framework bidders will be invited to offer contracting authorities service improvements that include the delivery of guaranteed resilience and efficiency valued in terms of reduced running costs, reduced energy consumption and reduced carbon emissions plus the management of those services. The guarantee refers to the bidder taking all the risks and costs relating to the provision of all services including any relevant design, procurement, commissioning, operation, life cycling and continued guaranteed performance of the installation using the bidders staff, contractors, or in some circumstances those of the Contracting Authority as may be agreed in the contract.

Service or Infrastructure improvements or upgrades may include but not be limited to combined heat and power, boilers (steam LTHW or MTHW), district heating or cooling, heat recovery, chilling, heat pumps, fuel cells, chillers, air handling, controls, solar PV, battery or energy storage, lighting, insulation (roof, pipes, building, cladding or related), glazing, water savings, water abstraction, effluent treatment, waste to energy, pyrolysis, clinical waste destruction or conversion, processing or removal, biomass, biofuel, biogas, grid reinforcement, capacity market, STOR, electrical (HV, MV and LV) improvements (demand reduction, re-profiling, generation, aggregation, co-generation, tri-generation, wind generation, standby generation), private wire, virtual power station, load or power management, gas supplies (natural, anaerobic digestion or biogas, on or attached to the national grid or not) technology to change or improve maintenance or life cycling arrangements, medical or paramedical, records systems, building management, BMS, maintenance management, preventative maintenance, soft facilities management, electric or hybrid vehicles, vehicle charging, vehicle maintenance, medical equipment charging or improvements, transfer of staff, subcontracts or subcontractors and any related technologies or services that are relevant.

In many cases the selected supplier may be expected to take over existing energy facilities building/ boiler house or plant rooms relevant to the project, sometimes under license and sometimes under a simple lease, for the operational period of the contract. In some cases the contract may include the construction or modification of existing buildings or structures associated with the delivery of services.

Details of the site, service requirements, and the existing facilities will be set out in the memorandum of information for each project, and bidders will be encouraged to attend the site to fully investigate the existing plant plus cost and plan their bids. Bids may be supported by variant bids going beyond any core proposal included in the project documentation, to cover additional operation and maintenance of existing plant, facilities management services and equipment as makes sense.

For each project bidders are encouraged to produce the best bid they can using all the available resources or skills they may possess. It is normal that all bids are in many ways unique and the CEF evaluation methodology will include the way to fairly evaluate different bids and variants.