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Consultant - Sāo Tomé and Príncipe Data Collection

Abu Dhabi

  • Organization: IRENA - International Renewable Energy Agency
  • Location: Abu Dhabi
  • Grade: Consultancy - International Consultant - Internationally recruited Contractors Agreement
  • Occupational Groups:
    • Statistics
    • Information Technology and Computer Science
  • Closing Date: Closed

 

Vacancy Announcement

Secretariat of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA)

Country Engagement and Partnerships (CEP)

 

Publication Date\:                                     3 November 2021

Deadline for Application\:                        2 December 2021 (at midnight, Abu Dhabi Local Time)

Title\:                                                         Consultant - Sāo Tomé and Príncipe Data Collection

Contract Type\:                                         Individual Contractor / Consultant

Duration of Contract\:                              12 Months

Location\:                                                  Remote

Expected Date for Entry on Duty\:         As soon as possible

Background

The International Renewable Energy Agency is an inter-governmental organisation headquartered in Abu Dhabi, mandated to promote the widespread and increased adoption and sustainable use of all forms of renewable energy in the pursuit of sustainable development, energy access, energy security and low-carbon economic growth and prosperity. IRENA’s mission is to play a leading role in the ongoing transformation of the global energy systems as a centre of excellence for knowledge and innovation, a global voice of renewable energy, a network hub for all stakeholders and a source of advice and support for countries.  At present, IRENA has 166 Members (165 States and the European Union) that acceded to its Statute, and 21 additional States in the process of accession and actively engaged. 

Country Engagement and Partnerships Division (CEP) leads the work with countries. It supports them in the development and implementation of national and regional renewable energy strategies, by contextualizing the knowledge being developed in the other three divisions of IRENA, to the national requirements. Its activities enable a systematic overview of country and regional needs, experiences and trends to help facilitate cross-fertilization of best practices between countries and regions, and shape IRENA's future programmatic priorities.

Decentralised renewable energy solutions present a key opportunity to provide clean, reliable, affordable and tailored electricity services to health centres currently lacking access or faced with unreliable supply. The dramatic cost reductions and technological improvement of renewable energy technologies in the past decade make renewables an economically and technically viable solution that can be rapidly deployed. Harnessing the nexus between energy and health through decentralised renewable solutions is a top priority for SIDS as it could substantially improve the quality of the services provided by healthcare facilities and by extension improving the quality of lives of people in these communities. Moreover, this will also improve resilience of these facilities to ever-worsening and periodic climatic disasters. By transitioning to clean energy, as a matter of fact, SIDS can increase their energy resilience and security, facilitate economic growth and job creation and solve reliable energy access challenges. 

Taking count of the above, IRENA has been steadily increasing its focus on the crucial nexus between energy and healthcare. This has culminated in the opening of a new line of work focusing on specific interventions in IRENA’s Member States to provide tailored recommendations for the deployment of decentralised renewable energy solutions to their healthcare systems, with work currently being undertaken in Burkina Faso in close cooperation with that country’s Ministries of Health and Energy. The nexus between energy and healthcare is also one of the top priorities of the SIDS Lighthouses Initiative, which is a framework of action to accelerate the energy transformation of SIDS coordinated by IRENA. This has become even more urgent in the current context of the COVID-19 Pandemic and the subsequent economic recovery efforts. More recently, São Tomé and Príncipe has requested IRENA’s support on the deployment of renewable energy solutions for its healthcare facilities. 

The health sector in São Tomé and Príncipe is highly vulnerable to significant power shortages with periods of lengthy blackouts, with over 156 outages having been observed over the first six months of 2020. All the health facilities in the country are connected to the grid, however the power supply is highly unreliable. Back-up systems are inadequate, with only the main healthcare facilities benefiting from back-up diesel generators – even in those cases, severe diesel shortages make those limited back-up options unreliable. The energy and health care challenges have spurred the Government’s interest to create an environment for investments in the energy sector in general and in special in the renewable energy sector, particularly in critical sectors such as health care. For this purpose, IRENA intends to procure the services of a consultant to carry out the required data collection and energy assessments from a selected sample of  healthcare facilities in Sao Tome and Principe to facilitate the analysis and assessment, under direct guidance and supervision of the IRENA team and advisors.

Objective

The overall objective of this project is to support São Tomé and Príncipe’s efforts in the deployment of renewable energy solutions in its healthcare facilities, by carrying out an assessment of electrification needs based on physical data collection. Furthermore, as electricity is essential for the proper functioning of health facilities, the project aims to provide São Tomé and Príncipe and development partners with the necessary technical and financial information for being able to implement decentralised renewable energy solutions and improve energy efficiency across the 45 health facilities in the country. This would also enhance the overall resilience of health facilities in the country to climate and natural disasters.

Scope of work

IRENA will take on-board a consultant with expertise in energy auditing, decentralised renewable energy deployment and assessing electrification needs. The consultant will carry out the required primary and some secondary data collection in liaison with the local energy and health ministries and under the supervision of the IRENA team and advisors.

The primary and secondary data collection and analysis makes the key component of the proposed sectoral assessment. The consultant is expected to conduct the data collection from the ground by visiting the selected set of healthcare facilities and by interacting with the relevant energy and health ministries and departments. The consultant will also act a local coordinator in Sao Tome and Principe and will facilitate interaction among the IRENA team, its advisors and the relevant energy and healthcare ministries. 

The main task of the local consultant will include, but not limited to;

  1. Facilitate the IRENA team and advisors in getting the secondary data on energy supply, energy demand and energy gap of the healthcare facilities in Sao Tome and Principe.
  2. Provide feedback for the finalisation of the primary data collection plan and sampling approach developed by the IRENA and to carry out energy audits in at least 10 facilities out of the existing 45 health facilities. 
  3. Compile primary data in the form of spreadsheet and report as per the direction of the IRENA team and advisors. 

The data to be collected may include;

  • Noting the features of the available medical and surgical equipment including machinery and equipment for the operation of the healthcare facility.
  • Estimating the existing energy supply to the healthcare facility including source of supply (e.g. grid, gen-set, or renewables etc.).
  • Estimating total energy demand of the facility as well as potential future demands
  • Identifying energy efficiency measure deployment in the healthcare facilities, as well as the identification of energy loss nodal points in the healthcare facilities. 

Based on the collected data, the overall assessment will be carried out broadly consisting of analysis of the energy supply gaps, proposed solutions and implementation recommendations for the acceleration of deployment of decentralised renewable energy solutions in São Tomé and Príncipe’s health care facilitates.

In consultation with the Health and Energy Ministries as well as with IRENA and its advisors, the consultant will also estimate electricity needs for a selected number of health facilities for each identified category, to develop an optimised technical design that may be tailored to the remaining health facilities in their respective categories. The estimates will be considering but will not be limited to\:

  1. Energy sourcing needs
  2. Energy efficiency measures excluding efficiencies of medical equipment
  3. Typical medical appliance usage
  4. Presently non-catered energy needs  

The analysis and assessment based on the collected data will be presented in the validation workshop. The consultant along with the IRENA team and advisors will present the data and the analysis to stakeholders present in the workshop to validate results.  

Responsibilities of the Consulting Services entity output

The local firm will be responsible to elaborate and deliver the deliverables of the assignment as explained in the scope of work under the publication policies and guidelines of IRENA, the IRENA/OECD style requirements and the anti-plagiarism policy. IRENA/OECD style requirements.

Reports, working papers or other documents prepared for IRENA must conform to IRENA/OECD style requirements. These requirements are outlined in IRENA’s style guide (IRENA Publications\: A Short Guide – PDF attached) and further elaborated in successive editions of the OECD Style Guide.

All IRENA publications must strive for clarity and accuracy, consistent with building an evidence-based narrative in line with the mandate to promote renewable energy worldwide.  

Crucial style details include English-UK spelling, Harvard-style source citations, and full explanation of abbreviations or acronyms.

Texts that do not meet IRENA’s stipulated style requirements will be returned to the commissioned writer or partner entity with a request for revision. IRENA reserves the right to withhold payment to a commissioned writer or partner entity until any such revision is satisfactorily undertaken.

  1. ANTI-PLAGARISM POLICY

Plagiarism will not be tolerated whatsoever in IRENA publications. Any report, working paper or other document prepared for IRENA must constitute original work, in which all sources for information or data receive complete and accurate attribution. Passages taken from prior publications or other works must either be presented as direct quotations (marked “…”) or paraphrased, with the source clearly stated in a Harvard-style citation in either case.

IRENA uses plagiarism-detection software to review all draft publications. Passages found to resemble existing publications too closely may require rewriting and more explicit source citation. Passages copied from prior publications (by IRENA or other publishers) cannot be accepted as original work and may be returned to the commissioned writer or partner entity for further revision. IRENA reserves the right to withhold payment to a commissioned writer or partner entity until any such revision is satisfactorily undertaken. Plagiarism, including either copy-and-paste text production or failure to cite sources, may result in rejection of the draft with no financial obligation on the part of IRENA.

All documents submitted as part of this contract will be the intellectual property of IRENA.

  1. ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS

The consultant will be required to discuss the project progress by joint video or telephone conference with the IRENA team and advisors as well as focal persons from the government of São Tomé and Príncipe. This will typically be on fortnightly or monthly basis.  

TIMELINE AND DELIVERABLES

Deliverable 1\: Secondary data on healthcare facilities and infrastructure in Sao Tome and Principe

Deadline\: Within 2 weeks of contract award

Payment Milestones\: First payment milestone (after submission of deliverables 1 – 3)(60% of payment issued on this milestone)

Deliverable 2\: Finalisation of primary data collection forms and templates to be used for energy audits

Deadline\: Within 5 weeks of contract award

Deliverable 3\: Primary data collected from at least 10 facilities in the form of spreadsheets 

Deadline\: Within 8 weeks of contract award

Deliverable 4\: Individual energy assessment/audit reports (draft) of each health facility based on primary as well as any secondary data. 

Deadline\: Within 10 weeks of contract award

Payment Milestones\: Second payment milestone (after submission of deliverables 4 – 5) (40% of payment issued on this milestone)

Deliverable 5\: Final audit reports incorporating feedback from IRENA team and advisors 

Deadline\: Within 12 weeks of contract award 

Duration of the deliverables includes waiting time for reception of comments from IRENA and the São Tomé and Príncipe counterparts and do not necessarily represent time available for the consulting services entity.    

It is expected that this study requires approximately 40 man-days. The assignment is required to be completed within 12 weeks of contract award.

Please note that travel, boarding and lodging expenses should be left out of the consultant’s submission in response to the TOR as the required travels will be arranged by IRENA in accordance with the organisation’s policy and procedures.

Qualification

Education\: Master’s degree in energy systems, renewable energy technologies, engineering, or energy management, or sustainable energy systems. A first-level (bachelor’s) degree with additional 2 years of relevant experience may be acceptable in lieu of a master’s degree; 

Experience\: At least 5 years of experience in conducting energy audits including identification of feasible energy efficiency options and estimation of monetary and fuel savings or design and installation of decentralised solar photovoltaic solutions with electrical load calculations; established networks with the relevant national and international organisations, power utilities, and energy ministry of Sao Tome & Principe; proven record on satisfactory deliverables; and prior experience of conducting energy demand assessments of healthcare facilities is desirable. Sound knowledge of renewable energy technologies and expert-level technical expertise on key renewable energy systems and extensive experience in their deployment in the small island context, particularly the knowledge of the major issues that need to be addressed for sustainable operation of the renewable energy systems in the local climate;

Language\: Good command of written and spoken English and Portuguese and excellent report writing skills;

                                                                     

Qualified candidates must apply for the above-mentioned vacancy on-line, through IRENA’s recruitment platform, Taleo, by submitting a complete and comprehensive CV and a letter of interest, including details of three professional references who will be contacted if their application is shortlisted.

Note that candidate should be capable of working together with people from different national and cultural backgrounds. IRENA is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups, and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to.

Please note that only candidates under serious consideration will be contacted for further assessment and receive notice of the final outcome of the selection process.                                         

 

This vacancy is now closed.
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