Bristol City Council in the UK is to restart a revised procurement process for the GBP 12 billion (USD 15.2 billion) City Leap Energy Partnership project subject to a further Cabinet Decision in July.

Bristol City Leap project envisages the delivery of a zero-carbon, smart energy city by 2030. The project will involve building a citywide energy system that will protect the environment and improve the quality of life for people in local communities. One of City Leap’s main aims is to attract, facilitate and deliver at least GBP 1 billion (USD 1.27 billion) of low carbon and smart energy infrastructure investment in Bristol’s energy system.

In May 2018 the city published the City Leap Prospectus which attracted 180 Expressions of Interest containing a wide range of proposals. The council subsequently undertook an extensive soft market testing phase, meeting with organisations that submitted Expressions of Interest, and completing its own comprehensive options appraisal. This led to the council selecting a preferred model to deliver City Leap involving setting up a joint venture with a Strategic Partner.

Following approval of the Cabinet Report, ‘City Leap Energy Partnership’, in April 2019, the council commenced the procurement of a Strategic Partner for the joint venture in September 2019, including hosting a Bidders’ Day event at City Hall, which attracted over 70 organisations.

Following the initial selection stage of the procurement, eight Bidders were selected to proceed to the next stage. The second stage was designed to obtain feedback from Bidders on key points of the procurement to ensure the market could provide the best response and consisted of three rounds of face-to-face meetings with Bidders, finishing on 5 March 2020. This enabled the council to gain valuable and extensive feedback across a range of topics from Bidders, with strong interest being shown by all Bidders in the low carbon energy infrastructure investment opportunities available under City Leap.

Having now considered the feedback received from Bidders, the council intends to make a number of changes to the City Leap Energy Partnership procurement in order to deliver the best possible outcome for Bristol. Some of these changes materially affect the nature of the procurement and, following legal advice, the council therefore has decided to formally bring the current City Leap Energy Partnership procurement exercise to an end and to recommence with a revised and simplified procurement exercise.

Separately to the City Leap procurement exercise, the Council has commissioned consultants EY to support Bristol Energy in determining the optimal business strategy for the company going forwards

Cabinet approval for this revised approach to the City Leap Energy Partnership procurement will be sought at Cabinet on 14 July 2020 and the revised procurement will commence as soon as practicably possible thereafter.