22-295 Rotherham Low Carbon Heat Network

Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council, as part of its decarbonisation programme, is seeking to procure an alternative, low carbon heat delivery solution to provide heat to its estate including its municipal properties in a first phase and potentially the housing stock of which it is landlord in a further later phase. Currently, the municipal buildings rely on gas boilers and the housing stock properties rely on either domestic or communal gas/biomass boilers for their heating requirements. The Council does not intend to invest capital with potential heat network developers that install and manage a heat network in Rotherham in respect of the first phase municipal buildings. The Council is publishing this notice on behalf of itself and any other contracting authority which has a requirement for a low carbon heat network in the local area. After conducting market research and financial due diligence about low carbon heat delivery options, the Council has identified the procurement of heating from a low carbon heat network as the Council's preferred solution. It is a condition of the Council's Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme (PSDS) funding that this preferred solution must be in place by 31 March 2025: part of the PSDS includes the preparation of the Council's estate for connection to a low carbon heat network. The Council understands that there is only one potential provider of heat supplied via a low carbon heat network in the Rotherham Metropolitan Borough that could meet the Council's preferred solution and timing requirements being Rotherham Energy Limited, which recently secured £25 million from the Government's Green Heat Network Fund to establish a new Rotherham Energy Network. The Council and other contracting authorities in the local area may therefore consider that for technical reasons, connected with Rotherham Energy Limited's unique position in the market as recipient of grant funding to establish the Rotherham Heat Network, the Council's and other local contracting authorities' low carbon heat network requirements can only be supplied by Rotherham Energy Limited, and that there are no reasonable alternative low carbon heat network solutions in the market. The purpose of this notice is to invite expressions of interest from any other providers in the market that could provide heating via a low carbon heat network in the Rotherham Metropolitan Borough to meet the Council's and other contracting authorities' requirements. If the Council does not receive any such expressions of interest within 30 days from the date of publication of this notice, the Council proposes to, and other contracting authorities in the local area may, use the negotiated procedure without prior publication under the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 to engage directly with Rotherham Energy Limited on the potential for it to supply heat for the Council/other contracting authorities from its low carbon heat network which may result in the award of a public contract pursuant to this procedure.