300MWh Projects Award to ENGIE Upheld by Guam’s Public Auditor

In a win for the clean energy goals of Guam, the Office of Public Accountability upheld the award of its Phase III Renewable Energy Project to ENGIE.

In a win for Guam’s clean energy goals, the Office of Public Accountability (OPA) upheld the power utility’s award of its Phase III Renewable Energy Project to ENGIE. The October 2019 award withstood three separate challenges by a single losing bidder, GlidePath Marianas Operations, a Chicago-based company that acquired the Dandan solar plant.

Luis F. Birolini, Head of Distributed Renewables for ENGIE North America said, “In its decision, the Public Auditor confirmed that ENGIE’s bid met the requirements set forth in Guam Power Authority’s Invitation for Bid (IFB) and was the lowest responsive bid for both sites. The Public Auditor held, ‘GlidePath’s failure to understand the requirements of the IFB did not affect the ability of any other bidder to correctly understand the requirements of the IFB and submit competing bids that conformed to the IFB’s requirements.”

ENGIE, an international energy group and global leader in low-carbon energy and services, won the bid for the Phase III projects on the two sites, Naval Base Guam and South Finegayan in October 2019. Within these projects ENGIE EPS will supply the 300 MWh innovative battery storage system and act as system integrator to render 100 percent of the daily solar production available for up to 7 hours after sunset, totaling 85GWh of clean dispatchable energy annually. The power will be tied directly to the utility grid for the people of Guam. As the low bidder, ENGIE’s system also ensures the highest savings to GPA and the Guam ratepayers.

The procurement is the third phase in a series of renewable energy projects by GPA and will include PV (solar) plus battery storage technology that will help power the grid at night. ENGIE’s design and engineering process for the Phase III project involved technical teams from the US, France, India, and Italy, with these design and construction leads meeting multiple times on Guam with the local engineering and construction community in order to submit a proposal utilising the local workforce here on Guam.

After the initial award to ENGIE, GlidePath filed three appeals, all of which were rejected by GPA. GlidePath subsequently appealed to the Office of Public Accountability. The firm stated that the appeals have delayed work on the Phase III project by 10 months.