External evaluation of proposals to the second ECOWAS Renewable Energy Facility (EREF) call on renewable energy mini-grids

The EREF Call for Proposals is supported by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management (BMLFUW), UNIDO, Spanish Agency for International Cooperation and Development (AECID) and Austrian Development Agency (ADA) and is part of activities aiming at the 22% target by 2020 for off-grid supply of rural population served from renewable energy. Project proposals cover all ECOWAS countries and refer to projects based on pure renewable energy systems as well as hybrid systems, including PV, mini hydro power, biogas, biomass gasifier, partly combined with diesel generators and batters storage. Applicants are NGOs, government organisations and private enterprises proposing different types of management and tariff systems.Services provided: kick-off meeting with members of EREF ECREEE management team, review of call documentation, agreement on evaluation sheet; evaluation of proposals using detailed criteria listed in EREF guidelines; preparation of report including evaluation sheet and evaluation report for each proposal; incorporation of EREF ECREEE observations into report.

Objective: provide a comprehensive evaluation of all relevant technical, economic and management aspects in order to allow for a ranking and proper selection of best proposals.

Activities: evaluation according to different criteria like relevance (addressing key challenges, synergies, avoid duplication etc.), impact (encourage productive use, multiplier effect, etc.), effectiveness (e.g. cost effectiveness, cost per installed kW, per household, per kWh etc.); feasibility (technical and economic FS, etc.), sustainability (ownership, O&M and tariff structure, trainings etc.)