sustainable energy marketplace: user's...

USER’S MANUAL

© IRENA 2016 This manual was prepared by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) to provide comprehensive, step-by-step guidance to users of the web-based Sustainable Energy Marketplace platform. IRENA’s Sustainable Energy Marketplace (marketplace.irena.org) facilitates connections between projects and investors, thereby helping to tap the enormous growth potential for renewable energy in developing markets. The Marketplace connects project developers, governments, financiers, and service/technology providers through a searchable, easy-to-use, web-based platform. Through this platform, IRENA and other partners aim to actively facilitate selected projects. Marketplace portals are initially available for Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, with coverage set to expand during 2016 to all developing countries. Disclaimer: This manual is provided “as is”. Neither IRENA nor any of its officials or agents makes any representations or warranties, express or implied, or assumes any liability for the use of this manual or its contents. The information herein is not an endorsement of any project, financing entity, service provider, or technology supplier. The presentation and designations employed do not imply the expression of any opinion on the part of IRENA concerning the legal status or the delimitation of frontiers or boundaries of any region, country, territory, city or area or of its authorities.

USER’S MANUAL | 1

Contents

1 Homepage ............................................................................................................................... 2

1.1 Caribbean, Latin America and Africa Portal ........................................................................... 3

2 Registration ............................................................................................................................ 6

2.1 Creating an account .................................................................................................................. 6

2.2 Registration .............................................................................................................................. 8

Organisation information ......................................................................................................... 8

Project information ................................................................................................................ 10

Financing instrument ............................................................................................................. 14

Submitting for approval and acceptance to the marketplace ................................................. 16

3 Search Functions .................................................................................................................. 18

3.1 General Search ....................................................................................................................... 18

3.2 Project Search ........................................................................................................................ 20

3.3 Financing Instruments ............................................................................................................ 23

3.4 Service Provider Search, Technology Supplier Search and Organisation Search ................. 25

3.5 Country Search....................................................................................................................... 27

3.6 Save Alert and Export to Excel functions .............................................................................. 29

Save Alert............................................................................................................................... 29

Export to Excel ...................................................................................................................... 31

4 Managing account ................................................................................................................ 32

4.1 Editing account ...................................................................................................................... 32

4.2 Editing profile ........................................................................................................................ 33

4.3 Deleting profile ...................................................................................................................... 34

4.4 Contacting administrator ........................................................................................................ 35

4.5 Adding/removing type of user to the profile .......................................................................... 36

2 | S U S T A I N A B L E E N E R G Y M A R K E T P L A C E

1 Homepage

Global Homepage

The homepage shows a map of the world with the locations of all the projects available. Under the map

are access tabs to three currently available portals: Caribbean Portal, Latin America Portal and Africa

Portal.

The user needs to click on one of these tabs to enter the respective marketplace. A visitor can register to

any of the three portals. Currently, a separate registration is required for each portal, in case the user

wants to register to more than one regional marketplace.

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1.1 Caribbean, Latin America and Africa Portal

Clicking the tab for any of the regional portals will open a similar page:

Regional portal

The first object to be noticed is the Google map at the center of the page, with summary data on the site

indicating the current volume on the marketplace.

The Google map will show the projects currently registered on the marketplace. A unregistered user you

are able to view the location and names of the projects.

The data on the left side of the map indicates the following:

- Number of projects in the marketplace (currently registered projects)

- Combined capacity of projects in the marketplace (total capacity of the projects looking for

support on the platform, including only projects that indicated their capacity in terms of MW)

- Total investment need (Total combined investment cost of the projects in the marketplace)

On the right side of the map there are three sections: News, Event Calendar and the Project Navigator.

- The News section offers news relating to renewable energy in the countries represented in the

marketplace, collected from a large number of online magazines, as an RSS feed

- The Event Calendar shows major events taking place around the world, related to sustainable

energy investments in the region


- The Project Navigator is an additional tool from the International Renewable Energy Agency

(IRENA) providing tools, templates and information for project developers.

Link to the Project Navigator.

On the left side of the map there are two sections: “Menu” and “Latest Projects”.

The website menu, where links to all the general information of the website can be found, is

structured in the following way:

- Home

- About

o The Sustainable Energy Marketplace, general description of the platform.

o IRENA, general description of IRENA and its purpose.

o General description of potential partners of IRENA

- Benefits for Users

o Explains the benefits of the marketplace to different type of users: project owners,

investors, host governments, suppliers of services and technology.

- Media

o News

o Event Calendar

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- Marketplace (available only to registered users)

o General search; search tool using key words.

o Projects; search for projects using filters and key words.

o Financial instruments; search of financial instruments using filters and key words.

o Service providers; search for service providers using filters and key words.

o Technology suppliers; search for technology suppliers using filters and key words.

o Organisations; search for organisations using filters and key words.

o Countries; search for information related to a specific country represented in the

marketplace.

- User profile (available only for registered users; links to the profile page of the user)

- Other marketplaces, where you can find the links to the global homepage or to the other

regional portals.

The Latest Projects section lists the most recent projects that have been added to the platform. If

you click “see more” under this list, the webpage will direct you to the projects search, where all

projects are listed (this function is available for registered users only).


2 Registration

2.1 Creating an account

At the top right corner of the page is the login to the website. To register as a new user, use the “new

user?” link under the login fields.

Clicking the link opens the following page:

Creating an account

The page shown here is the pre-registration page for a user’s profile. The applicant has to enter

information on the following:

- Organisation name

Indicate the name of the entity you wish to register

- Type of organisation

Multiple choice list where you can register with one or more of the following profiles:

Project owner; single choice among following types:

o Governmental organisation/agency

o Individual investor

o Large company

o Municipal organisation

o NGO

o Private project developer

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o SME

o Utility

Financing entity; single choice among following types:

o Bilateral Development Financing Institution

o Commercial Bank

o Governmental organisation/agency

o Independent producer

o Individual Investor

o International Financing Institution

o Municipal organisation

o National Development Financial Institution

o NGO

o Private company

o Private equity

o Utility

Service provider; single choice among following types:

o Engineering/Technical Advisory

o Legal Advisory

o Financial Advisory

o O&M contractor

o EPC contractor

o Environmental Advisory

o Project development & management

o Zoning and permit process advisory

o (Other) specify in general description

Technology supplier; single choice among following types:

o Component suppliers

o System providers/integrators

Subsequently, the applicant has to insert login and contact details as follows:

Register Login; the username you will use to enter into the marketplace

Register Email; the email where you prefer to receive notifications from the Marketplace, and where

upon registration you will receive your login details.

The user has to accept the terms and conditions by ticking the box.

In order to move to the actual registration form, the user has to click “Send”. The user will then receive

an email at the email address entered.


2.2 Registration

Once the account has been created, the user is directed to his/her profile page where he/she has to fill in

the required information on his/her organisation, projects (if project owner) and/or financial instruments

(if financing entity).

Entity registration form

Organisation information

The user must provide the following information (*mandatory):

General Information

o Year of establishment (*)

o Latest turnover (US$)

o Employees

o Phone number (*)

o Fax

o Email (*)

o Website

o Address (*)

o City (*)

o Country (*)

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Contact person information: Can be confidential if so selected and will be visible

only to IRENA

General Description (*): Describe organisation's background and history, profile,

structure and ownership, core activities and capabilities. Provide indications of the size

and geographical presence of the organisation. Please indicate previous successfully

closed projects, and other relevant experience and track record.

Facilitation needs: Describe what kind of support your organisation is currently

seeking.

Service provider information (if applicable, *)

Technology supplier information (if applicable, *)

Brochure upload

Once the information has been inserted, the user must click “Save” at the top right corner of the page. The

profile will appear as the following:

Entity profile page


Project information

To register as project owner to the marketplace at least one project must be entered. This is done by

clicking the Projects tab in the main profile and then clicking “Add project”:

Add project button under the projects tab

The following page opens:

Project registration form

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Once you open the form for the project data, the following information must be filled in (* mandatory):

Name of Project (*)

Capacity (*)

Capacity unit (*)

Total investment (*)

Annual generation (*)

Generation unit (*)

Grid connection (*)

Project ownership (*)

Status of project (*)

Expected start of construction (*)

Expected start of operation (*)

Land acquisition (*)

Permits (*)

Feasibility studies (*)

Agreements (*)

Financing process (*)

Project level IRR

Equity IRR

Direct payback period

Services currently sought

Financing currently sought

Financing plan (*)

Available financing

Project-level facilitation needs

Project summary (*); this includes:

o Project objective and structure

Please specify the background, purpose and objective of the project. Specify who

are the owners and other actual or planned key counterparties and stakeholders

involved in the project. Give a brief description of the roles and responsibilities of

each.

o Location

Please describe the location where the project is planned to be built, for example

site characteristics, natural and built environment, access roads, other relevant

existing infrastructure (such as distance to grid if grid connected project), and

resource availability (such as average wind speeds)

o Offtake

Please specify the current or envisaged power off-taker (or other buyers in case of

non-power projects) and explain the planned business model of the project.


o Grid connection

Please specify if the project is stand-alone, mini-grid or grid-connected and where

is the distribution of the output going to take place. In case of other outputs explain

the distribution channels, how and through which intermediaries the output will be

delivered.

o Socio-economic and environmental impacts

Please specify the social, economic and environmental impacts (both negative and

positive) this project will have and how it will comply with regulations. Explain

how the project is linked to national priorities. Describe also the studies that have

been made to assess these impacts.

o Current situation and planned activities

Please describe the current situation of the project. Describe which permits,

licenses and agreements are required in order to implement the project, and what

is the status of each. Explain also the status of technical, environmental and other

studies needed, as well as the status of financial arrangement. Specify what has

been achieved so far and what still needs to be achieved. Describe the planned

timeline of the project until construction and operation.

Brochure upload

Location on Google map (*)

Almost all of the information is either numerical or entered via dropdown lists, making this easy to

complete.

The user must provide all mandatory information. For the Google map location, the user is required to

find on the map and click the exact spot where the project will be built:

Location of project on map


While entering the requested information, please save your project profile regularly by clicking “Save” on

the right top corner of the form:

Save button


Financing instrument

Financing entities are required to enter at least one financial instrument before submitting their

application for approval. This is done by clicking the Financial Instruments tab on the main profile:

Financing instruments tab

Click “Add Financial Instrument”:

Add instrument button


The following window opens:

Financial instrument form

Once the Financial Instrument form is opened, the following information must be filled in (* mandatory):

Instrument name (*)

Instrument types (*)

Eligible beneficiaries (*)

Eligible project types (*)

Eligible countries (*)

Eligible phases (*)

Contact information

Project size MW

Project size (million USD)

Investment size (million USD)

Investment size (% of total investment)

Investment size (% of equity)

Investment size (% of debt)

General Description (*)

Instrument level facilitations needs

Brochure upload


Please save the financial instrument profile regularly by clicking “Save” at the right top corner of the

form:

Save button

Submitting for approval and acceptance to the marketplace

When all the required information is ready for submission, the user should go to the entity profile. This is

done by clicking the name of the entity, at the top of either the Project or Financing Instrument profile.

The user must then click “Submit for approval” at the right top corner of the main profile page:

Once the submit button is clicked, the following message will appear beside the entity’s name: “Your profile

is pending approval from the administrator”.


IRENA will review the profile and make sure that all information is consistent. When the information has

been verified, IRENA will approve the user’s access to the platform, and the user will then receive an email

notification of his/her acceptance.


3 Search Functions

When the approved user logs into his/her profile, he/she will be enabled with the website functions,

including search functions.

The search functions are available on the main page by clicking “MARKETPLACE” in the Menu.

3.1 General Search

The first function listed is the “General Search”, where any user can use a search engine to find all results

matching the keywords entered:

General Search

The user can also insert a filter by clicking “+See more filters”:


+See more filters button

The user can filter the General Search by entities, projects and financial instruments:

Filters for General Search


3.2 Project Search

The second search function available is Project Search, where users can look for registered projects in the

marketplace and filter them using different search parameters:

Projects Search

The user can either use the general search engine on the top by entering keywords, scroll-down the list

below where all projects are listed or use the label at the top of the table to list them alphabetically, by

size or by other parameters. Finally, the user can also filter the list by clicking “+ See more filters” under

the search tab:


Clicking the button makes the following filters appear:

Search filters for projects

Users can use one or more filters at a time. There are two types of filters, category/list filters and range

filters. To use the category/list filters, the user has to select any categories or names of interest in the list

and then click “Apply” under the filter:


When using range filters, the user only needs to scroll the side bars in order to limit the project size he/she

is looking for:

The list of projects below will adjust itself automatically when these filters are being applied.

By clicking the project name or the name of the company, the user can access respectively the project

profile or the company profile:


3.3 Financing Instruments

With the Financing Instruments search, users can look for different financial instruments offered by

different entities from the private and public sector. When the search function is clicked, a list of all

financial instruments in the field automatically appears. These instruments can be filtered by using different

parameters, similarly to the project search:

Users can either use the general search engine at the top by entering keywords, scroll-down the list below

where all financing instruments are listed, or use the label at the top of the table to list them alphabetically

or by size. Finally, they can also filter the list by clicking “+ See more filters” under the search tab:


When the button is clicked the following filters appear:

Search filters for financial instruments

Users can filter the instruments by instrument type, eligible project type, eligible countries, eligible

beneficiaries, eligible phases of the project, and the name of the financing entity providing the instrument.

Users can use one or more filters at a time. In this search function there are only category/list filters.

The user can access financial instrument profiles or financial entity profiles by clicking the desired names

directly from those lists:


3.4 Service Provider Search, Technology Supplier Search and Organisation Search

The service provider, technology supplier search and the organisation search functions are identical to the

previously mentioned project and financing instrument searches. For the first two, you can look for specific

service and technology companies that offer either different services according to your stage of

development and specific needs of the project, or different technologies which can be either components or

integrated systems. You can filter your search by using different criteria, such as type of services or

technology provided, countries of operation, name of the organisation, country of domicile, and more.

The organisation search allows you to filter all entities in the marketplace by type of user (project owner,

financing entity, service provider, technology supplier), type of organisation, name of organisation, country

of domicile, number of employees and last recorded turnover.

Service provider search


Technology supplier search

Organisation search


3.5 Country Search

The country search function allows the user to look for information regarding a specific country (policies,

regulatory frameworks and resources). The user will find a panel embedded in each country profile where

available tools and databases allow the registered user to learn more about a country’s framework and

market. There are tools that can be used, for project developers to develop their own projects or for other

users to cross-check information about projects situated in a specific country.

The panel is composed of tools and databases already provided by IRENA that have been linked to the

marketplace. It includes REsource (http://resourceirena.irena.org/gateway/) which is the most

comprehensive database available on renewable energy, the IEA/IRENA Policies and Measures Database

(http://www.iea.org/policiesandmeasures/renewableenergy/) providing all the latest policies and

regulations on renewable energy, and the Global Atlas (http://irena.masdar.ac.ae/) providing information

on renewable energy resources and other regional or country level information. Click the links if you wish

to learn more about these databases.

Clicking Country Search calls up the following page:

Country Search

In the middle of the page, there is a dropdown list where the user can select a specific country of interest.

The list changes according to which portal you are registered for or logged in to (Latin America, Caribbean

or Africa). When a country name is clicked, a page opens up with a panel that has the links to the

aforementioned tools and databases:

http://resourceirena.irena.org/gateway/

http://www.iea.org/policiesandmeasures/renewableenergy/

http://irena.masdar.ac.ae/


South Africa’s profile

The panel has two sections: the data section, where you find data on the installed renewable power capacity

of the country extracted from the REsource website, along with two links to the country’s Global Atlas

maps, and the country link to IEA/IRENA Renewable Energy Policies and Measures database (if available).

The other section, called “Additional information”, opens the REsource page related to the country,

containing additional information on the country including (also if available) IRENA reports related to that

specific country. Under the panel are listed all the projects present on the marketplace that are being

developed in the country:

Country panel followed by list of projects.


3.6 Save Alert and Export to Excel functions

In all search functions, you will find above the search results two tabs: the Save Alert function and the

Export to Excel function.

Save alert & Export to Excel in Projects Search

Save Alert

The Save Alert function allows the user to save a current search and used that to set up an alert in case new

cases corresponding to the search criteria are added to the platform, or if existing cases are modified.


The tab opens the following window:

Save alert page

The Save Alert function will create an alert on the current search the user was carrying out. The page will

ask you to give a title to the alert:

Secondly, the function specifies to which email the alert will be sent:

Thirdly, it will ask you if you want to be informed only about new additions to the platform, only about

changes to current, available cases, or both:


Finally, it will ask the user how frequently he/she wants to be alerted:

Once the user has chosen his/her options he/she clicks on the “OK” button at the end of the page to set the

alert.

Export to Excel

The Export to Excel function allows the user to export the search result list into an Excel file. When the tab

is clicked the list will be automatically downloaded, giving the same information shown on the website:

Export to Excel (Projects search)


4 Managing account

4.1 Editing account

When the user has logged in, he/she can edit his/her account by clicking “Edit account” at the top right

corner of the regional portal where he/she is registered:

Clicking the link opens the following window:

The page will ask if the user wants to change his/her email address from the one he/she used to register

(which can also be used as a username) or if he/she wants to change his/her current password.

[email protected]


4.2 Editing profile

The user can edit his/her main profile page whenever he/she wishes to do so. The user simply needs to

click “Edit” to the right of the page:

The user can also edit and update his/her projects or financial instruments, if any, by going to the project

or financial instrument profile and clicking “Edit” at the top of the page:

The user has to save the information he/she has modified in order to update his/her profile.

Test Company

Test Company

PROJECT NAME


4.3 Deleting profile

The user can delete his/her profile any time by going to the main profile page and clicking “Delete” to the

right of the page:

When the tab is clicked, the website will ask you the following:

Delete Form for project owners

Test Company


It will ask the reason for deleting the account (the options change based on which type of user is deleting

his/her profile) and allows also the user, if desired, to briefly described the reason why he/she made this

decision.

4.4 Contacting administrator

You can always contact the administrator, either clicking the “contact” tab, either in the regional

homepage:

Or on the main page of another user’s profile, in case you wish to report spam or any other issues related

to a specific user:

Project profile

When you click to select either of the two options mentioned above, the following window opens:

Test Company


The user must indicate the reason for contacting the administrator by choosing from five options:

Administrative and technical issues

Facilitation request

Report spam

Contact entity

Other

The user can also specify more in detail the issue he/she is confronting or the type of assistance he/she

requires.

4.5 Adding/removing type of user to the profile

The user can also decide if he/she wants to add or remove a type of user on his/her profile. The user can

register as project owner, financing entity, service provider and technology supplier.

By editing the main page of his/her profile, the user can remove or add a user type. This is done by checking

or unchecking the box under the type of user:

If you wish to add a user type, you must also indicate to which subcategory your organisation belongs.

�IRENA www.irena.org

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