Published on Friday 20th September 2024
in National Daily Newspaper “Gorkhapatra”

Government of Nepal
Ministry of Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation

Alternative Energy Promotion Centre
Central Renewable Energy Fund

Call for Concept Note Applications for Sustainable Energy Challenge Fund

(Published date: 20th September 2024)

Alternative Energy Promotion Centre (AEPC) has established a Viability Gap Funding based Sustainable Energy Challenge Fund (SECF) under the Central Renewable Energy Fund (CREF). Nepal Renewable Energy Programme (NREP) is a Government of Nepal (GoN) programme with funding support from UK-Aid dedicated to increasing private sector investment in distributed sustainable energy (DSE) and increasing universal energy access, while facilitating policy, planning, legal construct, and regulatory environment conducive to both enabling and sustaining progress in DSE market development. SECF provides financial and technical assistance to the DSE projects to ascertain their financial viability and ensure sustainable operation of approved projects.

The SECF application procedure consists of two-stage process. In the first stage, Concept Notes of potential DSE projects are requested. In the second stage, short listed Concept Note applicants will be invited to submit Full Applications, which will undergo due diligence and evaluation by an Independent Evaluation Panel of DRE experts.Through this call, the Concept Notes are only requested from the project developers and financial institutions for: (1) Projects proposed for the improvement of technical, financial and managerial aspects of the existing mini and micro hydro projects or other renewable energy mini-grid projects; (2) Captive solar PV installations and other DSE projects at commercial, institutional and industrial buildings for loan interest rate buy-down or incentives based on kWh generation; (3) Innovative DSE projects, and (4) Commercial banks interested in participating in the Loan Loss Guarantee Mechanism.

With this notice, AEPC/CREF invites all eligible applicants to submit Concept Notes via online application portal: www.secf.nrepnepal.com. Until further notice, this is to inform that the concept notes for only the following SECF windows will be accepted till the prescribed dates

Please note that only the concept notes received until the above deadlines for the respective SECF windows as a response to this call, will be evaluated for further action. Until further notice, concept notes for projects under the Public-Private Partnership, Demand Aggregation and Reverse Auction windows will no longer be accepted from the date of publication of this notice. So, we encourage potential applicants to submit their concept notes for the applicable SECF windows as soon as possible.

AEPC/CREF reserves the right to accept or reject, wholly or partly, any or all the project concepts without assigning any reason, whatsoever.

Please visit website https://www.nrepnepal.com/notices/ for further information. Interested applicants can also contact us directly through secf_queries@NREPNepal.com or call us at 9802323318. Information Package on SECF including eligibility criteria, application process and Funding Windows are also available through the following websites: www.moewri.gov.np, www.aepc.gov.np, www.cref.gov.np, www.nrepnepal.com.