Hogan Lovell OffshoreBook 2023 230809 OnlinePDF - Flipbook - Page 88
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is currently the case - the Government can
organise a call for tender for the building and
operation of an OWF.13
The successful bidder has the right to get
an authorisation to operate the OWF and
to conclude a PPA or an additional remuneration contract with EDF. However, he
has to obtain the authorisations relating to
environment protection and occupation of
the maritime public domain (see section 3.2
below).
The framework of public tender procedures
is as follows:
Whereas the call for tenders was the sole call
for competition procedure that can be used
to attribute the building and operation of
OWF, another procedure, called competitive
dialogue, has existed since 2016.14
Firstly, in a call for tenders,15 the Minister
in charge of energy establishes the specifications ("cahier des charges"), in which it
mentions, amongst other information:
(a) the maximum power sought and the
geographic area;
(b) a description of the installations, including their technical features, duration
and financial modalities of the PPA or
additional remuneration contract; and
France
call for tenders, including the bid award
criteria. Risk-sharing provisions may be
granted under the tender framework as a
further incentive package, in particular as
regards a change in law or force majeure
risks. The tender specifications are submitted to the CRE’s opinion.
The Minister in charge of energy publishes a
call for competition in the Official Journal of
the European Union.
This is a formal, rigid process which offers in
practice very little room for negotiation and
requires candidates to submit a technical
and financial offer (price) based on the
tender specifications and contractual documentation. At the end of the procedure, and
after the offers have been analysed by the
CRE, the Minister in charge of energy chooses the most economically advantageous
tender without negotiation on the basis
of objective criteria which have previously
been communicated to the candidates.
A call for tender was used to attribute
the first and second sets of French OWF
projects respectively launched in 2011 and
2013. In these two tenders, the evaluation
criteria were:
(a) electricity purchase price (40%);
(b) industrial and social quality of the project (40%); and
(c) the modalities and regulations for the
13 Article L.311-10 of the Energy Code.
14 Ordinance n°2016-1059 dated 3 August 2016 relating to electricity production coming from renewable energies and decree n°2016-1129 dated 17
August 2016 relating to competitive dialogue process for the electricity production installations.
15 Article R.311-1 and following of the Energy Code.
