The key principles for the design of the RFP, Part B of the RFP (The Qualification Criteria) are divided into the following three broad categories with various sub-categories under each of them:

• Legal Criteria;
• Financial Criteria; and
• Technical Criteria.

The ESIPPPP will provide for long term power purchase agreements up to 15 years.

The timelines for the BESIPPPP Bid Window 3 is release of the RFP in the market on 28 March 2024, and Bid Submission on 31 July 2024. Preferred Bidder announcement is targeted approximately 3 (three) months post the Bid Submission Date and Financial Close will be approximately 6 (six) months post Preferred Bidder announcement.

The 10 points under the regulations of the PPPFA is allocated to specific goals to promote Economic Development. The Economic Development commitments remain a cornerstone of the IPP Programmes.

The procurer, in respect of the procurement programme, will be the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy and the electricity must be purchased by Eskom Holdings SOC Limited designated as the buyer.

The Qualification and Evaluation process will be based on the known and internationally recognised two-staged evaluation approach as used in all previous procurement rounds with an additional assessment for Value for Money as part of the evaluation stage:

• The first stage is a qualification stage that has a number of minimum qualification requirements for the legal, financial and technical responses. The qualification criteria has been designed to elicit, amongst others, an indication of the readiness of Projects. A project has to pass all of the qualification criteria to advance to the evaluation stage.
• The second evaluation stage is a comparative evaluation of price and economic development commitment. In this regard the 90/10 split is applicable to the IPP Procurement Programmes where a score out of 90 points is allocated for price and 10 points is allocated for specific economic development commitment goals which may be developed by DMRE, as the organ of state.
• As a further Value for Money assessment, the Department will as part of the evaluation stage, introduce a benchmarking exercise prior to the selection of the final preferred bidders. If the Department is of the view, after the comparative evaluation, that the Evaluation Price offered by any Bidder is higher than the price that would be expected to be achieved in any comparable jurisdiction (as determined by the Department), then the Department may, in its sole discretion, invite the Bidder or Bidders to tender a best and final offer (BAFO).
• The outcome of this stage is a list of preferred bidders.