Request for Information: Distributed Energy Resources (DER)

Active

Contract Opportunity

The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), Public Buildings Service (PBS) is conducting market research to obtain responses from all interested and qualified vendors that can successfully provide the services described herein. The information provided in this RFI is subject to change and is not binding on the government.

The Government intends to utilize the information from this RFI to identify companies that can meet the Government’s requirements below, provide input on acquisition strategy, including proposed contract type, acquisition planning schedule and the feasibility of the requirement. The contemplated NAICS codes are 33531, 33591, 33599, 541513, and 561210.

The Government invites Respondents to submit ideas that could assist it in attaining its objectives. The Government will not reimburse Respondents for any expenses associated with responding to this RFI, though the Government sincerely appreciates Respondents' efforts and input.

Project Objective and Background

Distributed Energy Resources (DER), as an emerging technology, allows the GSA to better monitor and manage the resource usage of its real estate assets. The information retrieved from DER systems can be used to manage load requirements and increase operational efficiency. These DERs include but are not limited to:

• PV or solar photovoltaic systems


• Energy storage systems (batteries, thermal)


• EV (electric vehicles) / smart charging


• Geothermal


• Hydro-electric


• Fuel Cells


• Microgrids


• Cogeneration


• Wind turbines


• Biogas & biomass systems

The objective of this RFI is to seek interested parties that can provide scalable and open DER equipment, installation, and support services that are interoperable with other current and potentially future technologies. The GSA requires any DER solution to have the capability to integrate with the existing fault detection and diagnostics (FDD) platform known as GSAlink without any overlay or cloud solution. The GSA prefers these technologies to communicate via BACnet. Currently, GSA does not hold a contract or contract vehicle for this type of service; therefore this will be a new action.

GSA is seeking a contractor that can provide DER solutions, including installation, maintenance, and support services to uphold the following major GSA mission areas:

• Support facility uptime


• Minimize dependency on commercial grid


• Increase building operational efficiency

Technology based objectives include:

• Adherence to GSA’s SONIC requirements. All proposed solutions must be Secure, Open, Normalized, Interoperable, and Converged (SONIC).


• Proposed solutions should preferably communicate via the BACnet protocol.


• Ability to provide near real-time updates from the controller.


• Ability to support and/or be supported by third-party integrations.


• Application and adherence to GSA IT Security policies and requirements to provide a secure solution.

This service will be for internal GSA facility use only. Service shall not be used for installation in leases, with the exception of capital or portfolio leases that are operated and maintained by GSA.

RFI Response Requirements

All Interested parties shall submit the following minimum information:

• Name of company


• SAM UEI#


• POC, Telephone Number(s), Address, and e-mail address


• Supporting narrative/capability statement as applicable to this RFI
  
  
  
  • Anticipated Requirement Specifications
  
  
  • Generic Cost Estimate - provide by technology (geothermal, battery storage, VRF, etc.) / point.
  
  
  • Technical Questions
  
  
  • Additional Information
  
  
  • Generic cost estimate - provide by KW range (small, medium, large - ranges to be determined by contractor)
  
  
  
  

Anticipated Requirement Specifications

Interested contractors should provide sufficient documentation to demonstrate the company’s ability to meet, at a minimum, the service requirements as stated within this RFI.

A need for a Commercial Off the Shelf (COTS) DER technology (as a base to be built upon) to integrate fully with GSALink via IPv4 (solutions must be IPv6 capable) with the minimum ability to provide critical system data to include but not limited to:

• System status (online, offline, etc.)


• Power output (how much energy is being produced/consumed at any given moment)


• Energy storage levels (for vehicles/BESS include state of battery charge systems with bi-directional communication with the BAS)


• Trending/Historical data


• Grid interaction


• All interested contractors should provide a list of points that are extractable from their proposed solution.


• Total operation time


• Number of failures and total repair time


• Metrics for local temperature and humidity


• Power, voltage, current, power factor, energy measurements from sub-meters, local utility TOU rates

Please note, GSA is not interested in pursuing vendor specific front-end platforms or web-interfaces. The DERs must have open points to integrate to the GSA environment, to be provided by others and separate from this requirement. The Contractor will coordinate all technical implementation tasks with Government-designated support teams including server, application, network and/or security teams. This task includes the technical support, changes, and architectural expertise to maintain the solution in compliance with all existing GSA policies and guidelines. Issues that may be discovered through scan, reviews and audits shall be resolved in the timeframes defined by GSA Policy. The scope of the resulting procurement shall include all products and support services required to deploy, host, license, configure, integrate, and support the enterprise sensor technology, as well as train key stakeholders.

Technical Questions

1. Proprietary protocols, naming conventions, and front-end platforms are not acceptable. Does the supplier DER solution adhere to the GSA’s SONIC requirement? SONIC (Secure, Open, Normalized, Interoperable, and Converged) mandate?


2. GSA is not interested in pursuing vendor specific front-end platforms, overlay software or web-interfaces (i.e. cloud-based solutions), can the contractor provide a Commercial Off the Shelf (COTS) as a base that can be built upon/expanded, on-premises DER technology to integrate with GSAlink/SkySpark (preferred) and existing Building Monitoring & Control / Building Automation System (BMC/BAS) onsite (secondary)?


3. Can the contractor provide a DER solution that does not require an onsite bridge or gateway?


4. Does the contractor have experience implementing an installation nationwide?


5. Is the vendor solution alarm capable?


6. Are the contractors points list read, read/write enabled from their proposed solution?


7. Is the vendor solution OpenADR 2.0 capable?


8. Standard data to be included would

IT Considerations

1. GSA has moved to the most current protocol of IPv6. Does the vendor proposed solution meet this requirement? Operational deployment and use of IPv6 has been mandated by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) via M-21-07. The OMB directive, issued on November 19, 2020, includes the requirement to upgrade internal client applications that communicate with public Internet servers and supporting enterprise networks to operationally use native IPv6.


2. Does the vendor proposed solution meet GSA’s MFA requirements which require the vendor to use GSA’s single-on and multi-factor authentication (MFA) protocols to securely access the platform? If so, what are the alarming capabilities and the notification process (SMTP, text, etc.)?


3. The vendor must support configurable integrations with GSA operated, and government-wide operated, identity and authentication / single sign on services.The vendor must support SAML 2.0 and/or OpenID Connect integrations.


4. The vendor shall support SCIM (System for Cross-domain Identity Management) or a vendor secured RESTful API for GSA to create and manage GSA end user accounts. This includes creation, assignment of roles, and termination.

Additional Information

1. What is your firm’s socioeconomic status?


2. Does your firm have a GSA Schedule contract, if so what is your schedule contract number and category?


3. Please limit responses to no more than fifteen (15) pages (excluding brochures, and listings of authorized resellers), and submit in either Microsoft Word or PDF file format. It is recommended to submit the information in the format as outlined above to minimize the effort of the respondent and structure the responses for ease of analysis by the Government.

This notice does not constitute a Request for Quote (RFQ)/Invitation for Bid (IFB)/Request for Proposal (RFP) or a promise to issue an RFQ, IFB, or RFP in the future. This notice does not commit GSA to contract for any supply or service. Further, GSA is not seeking quotes, bids or proposals at this time and will not accept unsolicited proposals in response to these sources sought notice. GSA will not pay for any information or administrative costs incurred in response to this notice. Submittals will not be returned to the responder.

All questions regarding this RFI must be submitted by email to jacqueline.desimone@gsa.gov.

Attachments/Links