This is an HTML version of an attachment to the Freedom of Information request 'Correspondence with Element Power Ireland Limited'.


Ref. Ares(2018)134320 - 09/01/2018
From: 
INEA CEF ELECTRICITY 
Sent: 
09 January 2018 15:49 
To: 
'
 
Cc: 
 
 
 
Subject: 
Action 1.9.1-0018-IEUK-S-M-15 - final report and financial statements - 
sampling 
Attachments: 
sampling and procurement table.xlsx 
 
Dear 
 
 
The agency acknowledges receipt of the request for payment of the balance for the Action mentioned 
above on 21/12/2017 and I am pleased to inform you that the assessment of your report has started. 
 
On the basis of article II.24.3 of the Grant Agreement, a sample of transactions (see detail in Annex) has 
been selected, for which you are requested, to provide supporting documentation: 
 
•             Direct external costs: copy of the invoices; 
•             Public procurement (if any): complete the pre-filled attached Excel file on procurement 
procedures (see Annex - In case of non-applicable fields, please insert 'n/a').   Where relevant, 
provide for each of the concerned items (in the comments column of the table, or in a separate 
document):  
a)            Justification for the increase of the aggregated value of the contract, if such an  increase 
is higher than 50% than original amount; 
b)            Justification for the absence of an EU wide tendering process when the value of the 
contract is  above EU thresholds or for use of negotiated procedures without prior publication; 
c)            Justification for the absence of the reference of publication(s) in the Official Journal 
(contract award notice); 
d)            Information on any applicable framework contract; 
e)            When below EU thresholds, confirm best value for money. 
 
•             Selected procurement procedure: Out of the transactions of the sampling, item number 15 has 
been selected for a more detailed assessment of the procurement procedure applied. Therefore, 
depending on the procurement procedure followed, you are requested to provide the Agency with (i) 
the report on the award procedure as per Art 43 of Directive 2004/18/EC, or (ii) information concerning 
contract awards as per Art 50 of Directive 2004/17/EC, or (iii), detailed justification of the steps followed 
for selection of the contractor. If you are a private company or this item is below the EU thresholds (see 
website link in the sampling table for information on threshold amounts) - please provide 
explanation/documentation on applying the best-value for money rule in the procurement process. In 
particular, for large contracts concluded by private entities, such documents as requests for offers from 
contractors, the received offers and their comparison analysis, a signed contract etc. should be 
submitted.  
 
Furthermore, please also provide information/ clarification regarding: 
 


• 
With a 
 technical action completion, could you please explain that relatively more resources 
had to be used under activity 1 (
 completed, financial costs = 
 of the initial estimated 
eligible amount) acknowledging that it is a horizontal activity for all activities? 
• 
Activity 
 The end date of each of the activities were all stated to be 
delayed to dates ranging from 
 Please confirm that these respective 
dates are maintained and/or provide updated dates. Please also provide the status of the 
technical implementation of each activity. For 
 please explain why the date 
of 
 cannot be brought forward. 
• 
Few relevant study reports related to the action seem to be available on your website, 
www.greenlinkinterconnector.eu/resources, such as the Environmental Scoping Report for UK 
marine. Could you therefore explain why other reports such as the Stakeholder Register report, 
the Irish Landfall Study, the Marine Route study are not available? Are there plans to make them 
public available or are there existing means of verifications such as press releases? 
• 
Financial statement: could you make the text more clear for item n° 355, 'Additional recharge to 
factor in adjustment to 1720 ruling based on Deloitte audit testing'
 ? 
• 
Final Report (word) 2.2 – Completion per activity: There seems to be a few inconsistencies for 
actual activity completion date; namely
 
 
herefore please confirm/adjust the dates when returning this 
sampling request by email (no new word document is necessary!). 
• 
The executive summary: The executive summary does not appear to address the last two bullet 
points of the guidelines; i.e. for point 2 it should stipulate the duration of the action (29/4/15-
31/12/2016) and for point 3 the main outcome and next step(s) should be stated in a few lines. 
Could you please re-send an updated text when replying to this email (no new entire word 
document is necessary!)? Please also be informed that the executive summary is to be made 
publicly available and that a legal disclaimer will accompany its publication. 
 
Finally, please confirm that the bank accounts indicated in Article 5 of the Grant Agreement continues to 
be the bank accounts for all payments related to this Action. 
 
Please send the relevant supporting documentation at the latest within 30 days following the date of 
this email and note that the time limit for payment according to Article II.24.4 of the Grant Agreement is 
suspended until all the supporting documentation and clarifications requested are received.  
 
Upon receipt of the supporting documents, the Agency will assess the eligibility of the costs according to 
article II.19 of the Grant Agreement and will reject costs considered not to meet these criteria. 
 
 
Regards, 
 
  
Project Manager - Unit C4 – Energy and ICT 
 
European Commission 
Innovation and Networks Executive Agency (INEA) 

Chaussée de Wavre 910, W910 01/125 
B-1049 Brussels/Belgium  
  
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