Procurement guides and the work of the JTFPE

The Utilities Directive is one of a series of European Directives designed to open up the Single Market to all interested tenderers, by concentrating on Public Procurement. The aim is that all interested European tenderers would be familiar with the technical requirements and all should be equally able to tender. Power station operation is regarded by the European Commission as a “Utility” and that the Directive applies to major contracts for the supply of plant, equipment, services and works to power stations. It was recognised that power stations used plant and equipment covered by both the European standards bodies CEN and CENELEC, and the Joint Presidents´ Group, a sort of high level liaison group between the bodies, decided to set up the CEN/CENELEC Joint Task Force Power Engineering (JTFPE) in 1990 to “establish as soon as possible a report on the needs for creating harmonized standards in the field of power engineering and the infrastructure that would be necessary to realize these standards”. The work of JTFPE in power station equipment procurement since then is discussed