A. GONZALEZ, Empresarios Agrupados, A. I.E., Spain

Abstract: The Bid Invitation Specification (BIS) is a crucial element of the procurement process of a new nuclear power plant. The BIS documents constitute the basis used by the prospective bidders to prepare their bids for the nuclear power plant contract. In the BIS documents, the owner provides information regarding the project, instructions for the bidding process to be followed up to contract award, bid evaluation criteria, bid structure and contents, scope of supply requested, main project schedule milestones, technical requirements, as well as commercial, contractual and financing conditions applicable to the supply. It should be noted that the scope, structure and contents of the BIS documents largely depend on the contract approach selected by the owner for the project.

Key words: bid invitation specifications, BIS for nuclear power plants, bidding for nuclear power plants, owner specification for nuclear power plants, acquisition of nuclear power plants.

18.2 Introduction

The decision by an electric utility (hereinafter, the owner) to build a nuclear power plant, as part of the long-term nuclear power programme in a given country, usually follows a feasibility study carried out to provide the utility management and the relevant authorities of the country with the necessary information on which to base the decision to go ahead with the project and which demonstrates that the project is actually viable from the technical, economic and financial points of view.

Once the owner takes the decision to build a new nuclear power plant, two main phases of project implementation follow:

• The acquisition phase

• The construction phase.

The acquisition phase, sometimes referred to as the preconstruction phase, typically includes the following main activities: [103]

• Request for bids from prospective vendors

• Bid preparation by bidders

• Technical and economic bid evaluation

• Selection of the successful bidder (i. e., the vendor or supplier) and con­tract negotiation

• Contract signature.

The preparation of the Bid Invitation Specifications (BIS) is one of the most important preconstruction activities to be carried out by the owner during the plant acquisition phase. This chapter focuses on the preparation by the owner of the BIS as the key document by way of which he provides the bidders with information about the project, instructions on how to prepare and submit their bids, the scope of supply he wishes to purchase and the requirements of all types (i. e., technical, commercial and contrac­tual) that he wishes to impose on the vendor for delivery of the plant.