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HomeMy WebLinkAboutRFP - 7556 COMMUNITY SOLAR GARDENAddendum 1 – 7556 Community Solar Garden Page 1 of 5 ADDENDUM NO. 1 SPECIFICATIONS AND CONTRACT DOCUMENTS Description of BID 7556: Community Solar Garden OPENING DATE: 3:00 PM (Our Clock) November 8, 2013 To all prospective bidders under the specifications and contract documents described above, the following changes/additions are hereby made and detailed in the following sections of this addendum: Exhibit 1 – Questions & Answers Please contact Pat Johnson, CPPB, Senior Buyer at (970) 221-6816 with any questions regarding this addendum. RECEIPT OF THIS ADDENDUM MUST BE ACKNOWLEDGED BY A WRITTEN STATEMENT ENCLOSED WITH THE BID/QUOTE STATING THAT THIS ADDENDUM HAS BEEN RECEIVED. Financial Services Purchasing Division 215 N. Mason St. 2nd Floor PO Box 580 Fort Collins, CO 80522 970.221.6775 970.221.6707 fcgov.com/purchasing Addendum 1 – 7556 Community Solar Garden Page 2 of 5 EXHIBIT 1 – QUESTIONS & ANSWERS Q1. Does FCU intend for the community solar program to offer the same rebates as your rooftop solar program, $1.75/watt? Using that math, that would provide a rebate budget of $525,000 for the first 300 kW community solar array. Is the $525,000 amount for rebates correct? A1. We anticipate a rebate of $1.50/watt in 2014. The FY2013-14 budget for the solar garden is $500k Q2. Is there any limitation on how many kW of rebates that various groups of FCU ratepayers can receive in the community solar program (like the max of 3 kW for a residential customer and 10 kW for a commercial customer as there is in the FCU rooftop solar program)? A2. For “phase 1” the “120% rule” will apply and caps of 3kW for residential and 10kW for commercial class customers. Q3. The RFP also notes that third party operators in the community solar program “will be able to take advantage of all available incentives offered by the City”. Separate from rebates and your on-bill financing program, are there any other City incentives that would apply to your community solar program? A3. For “phase 1” only the equivalent of Fort Collins’ small system solar rebates is anticipated to be available. Q4. The RFP notes that “Customer bill credits will be based on equivalent net metering energy rate.” Often, a rooftop net metering rate includes the base rate, any applicable surcharges, taxes, etc. Could you clarify some issues on those rates: a. What will be the actual initial bill credit rate per kWh? A4.a. For purposes of your RFP response, we anticipate offering residential customers the equivalent of the annual average sector energy charge. Currently this value is in the neighborhood of $0.072/kWh. b. Will that rate be the same for each type of FCU customer, or, will it vary between residential, commercial, industrial customers? A4.b. This charge will vary depending on applicable rates in each of these sectors. c. What will the unsubscribed rate be, for the power produced that may not be allocated to a particular FCU customer by the time the array reaches its Commercial Operation Date (COD)? CEC often has its arrays sold out by the COD date but sometimes not. However, for simplicity and for best bank financing, we recommend that the unsubscribed power rate be the same as the typical bill credit rate(s). A4.c. Under the anticipated Power Delivery Agreement, excess/unsubscribed generation will be purchased by PRPA at the published avoided cost rate (PRPA Tariff 3, $0.01986/kWh). Addendum 1 – 7556 Community Solar Garden Page 3 of 5 d. How will FCU adjust that rate(s) in future years (will it adjust up or down at the same % as your regular rates)? Also, if they adjust with regular rates and some regular rates have a different % adjustment in a particular year, will community solar credit rates adjust at different percentages based on each customer class, or, one average % adjustment? A4.d. Community Solar Garden rates will track in-step with standard rate ordinance adjustments Q5. On the location/size of the City-owned site, the Power Delivery Agreement (PDA), the Interconnection Agreement (IA) and the Site Lease Agreement (SLA) when do you think information will be available on those? A5. The City expects these documents to be ready by the time the City begins contract negotiations with the awarded contractor. Contractors may review our current PDA and IA online at www.fcgov.com/solar as a baseline for the intended contract documents. Q6. Paragraph II, 4, a of the RFP notes that the site will be leased for a nominal annual fee. Will the SLA state more specifically what that amount will be? A6. The lease amount is expected to be one (1) dollar per year. Q7. On the Professional Services Agreement attached to the RFP, could you please clarify what developer-provided services would be covered by that agreement? We normally provide our community solar programs without such an agreement; all our work for such programs are usually covered by the PDA, IA and SLA. A7. The services covered under the PSA are those required to design, market, finance, build and operate the solar program – any/all services necessary to get the solar garden running and then to maintain it. Our intent is to keep the details of the power delivery, interconnection and land lease separate. Q8. Paragraph II, 6, a of the RFP asks for developers to follow the City’s solar sizing guidelines for the maximum amount of community solar capacity that any one customer can have. Is that capacity based on a % of that customer’s prior year’s kWh usage and is the maximum the same for each customer class? Also, what is the minimum amount of capacity that any customer can have (we recommend the power produced by one solar panel as the minimum). A8. Maximum customer solar capacity is 120% of typical annual load based on previous 12 month kWh usage. Subject to conversation with the selected garden operator, we anticipate that the minimum share will be equivalent to a single solar module in the solar garden array. Q9. Paragraph III, 13 of the RFP indicates that the City could allow other State and local governmental agencies, political subdivisions and/or school districts to utilize the results of this RFP award, upon agreement of all parties. Could you please clarify the intent of this paragraph (distributing information vs allowing those groups to somehow Addendum 1 – 7556 Community Solar Garden Page 4 of 5 participate in the community solar array)? Also, does the “upon agreement” part of this paragraph mean that the developer would have to consent to such utilization? A9. Other entities would be allowed to use the contract once finalized, in order to build their own solar garden. Other entities would be able to see the RFP, proposals received and contract documents to determine if their needs are similar. Yes, the developer would need to agree to such utilization and is expected to provide the same service at the same or better pricing. Q10. Paragraph III, 16 of the RFP talks about background checks. What would be the timing of any background checks? A10. Background checks may be necessary dependent upon the site that is chosen. If required, they would need to be completed by the awarded contractor prior to beginning work. Q11. In RFP section IV, is the weighting factor on cost and work hours evaluating the proposed total development cost for the 300 kW array and each customer’s prorated amount of that total cost (per watt, kWh or some other metric) to participate in the community solar program? This type of cost is noted in RFP paragraph V, I, 1. A11. $ per Watt for a subscriber to participate in the solar garden. Q12. In paragraph V, A, could you please clarify the intended declaration? A12. Delete the sentence “Additionally, the cover letter must include the following declaration:” Q13. In paragraph V, D, would it be OK to submit resumes for non-prime contractor staff that would work on this array after general award of the project to the developer? We have a short list of subcontractors and sub-consultants that we use for our typical arrays but we usually do not select the exact firm for each part of each array until well after our selection. A13. Yes, we can allow firms to submit resumes for subcontractors/sub- consultants after the RFP opening date. Firms will be given 2-3 days to submit the additional resumes. Q14. Related to paragraph V, I, 1, we do general budget estimates on system development costs before we submit a proposal but defer exact bids on those costs until after we are awarded the rights to develop a community solar array by the utility. Would that be acceptable? A14. Pricing submitted with each proposal should be the cost that your firm is willing to do the job for. The City does not allow pricing to be revised after the RFP’s are opened. Addendum 1 – 7556 Community Solar Garden Page 5 of 5 Q15. Looks like the city picks the land site, but the contractor must provide 'site improvements' and 'fencing that meets National Electric Safety Code'. There is no space on the application for us to even indicate our land site. A15. It is anticipated that the site will be City ground with final selection determined by a site selection committee including the selected solar garden developer. Please see Section II 3. Q16. At the end of the 20-year term, the land ownership, title to the solar garden system and escrow reserves transfer to the city--they don't stick with us or a financier to whom we sell the projects. A16. Section III.3 states a performance period of 20 with up to two 5 year extensions. The end-of-term options will be lined out in the program’s legal agreements. Q17. All material submitted with the RFP become ownership of the city of Fort Collins. A17. The City doesn’t return the RFP materials. Q18. We need to submit new materials compared to other RFPs: a marketing plan, current audited statement of financial condition, prepared by a CPA, and a detailed list of our own organization's Sustainability Plan (office practices, materials, etc). A18. Your proposal should include all of the items mentioned. Whether or not, they are “new” is a business decision for you. Q19. Their time-frame is quick: we need to achieve commercial operation by 6/1/2013, but for every day that we're late, there is a $500/day penalty for Liquidated Damages. Very dangerous to commit to this without a site assessment or land review. A19. June 1, 2014 commercial operation date (“COD”) is subject to the site selection process which may, by mutual consent, delay the COD. Q20. What billing system software does the City currently use? Will that likely stay your software through next year, or, are there any plans to change to another billing system in 2014? A20. Fort Collins Utilities uses Ventyx Customer Suite version 4 for customer billing.