RFI: Wholesale Energy Supply

Contact Information

Carl Spector

(617) 635-3854

carl.spector@boston.gov 

As agent for the customers of the City of Boston (the “City”) municipal aggregation program, the approval of which is currently pending before the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities (the “DPU”) in docket 19-65 (the “Program”), and acting by and through its Commissioner of the Environment (the “Official”), the City hereby requests information from businesses, persons, or entities licensed by the DPU to be a wholesale electricity supplier (“Respondents”) sufficient to prequalify such Respondents to provide firm all-requirements power supply to Program customers (“Customers”) pursuant to the terms and conditions set forth in the City’s request for information dated April 20, 2020 (the “WESA RFI”). An electronic copy of the WESA RFI may be obtained after 12 o’clock noon Eastern Time (ET) on April 20, 2020 at the City’s Supplier Portal (boston.gov/supplierportal) under Event ID EV00007945. The WESA RFI will be available up to the deadline for the submission of prequalification statements set forth below.

Respondents shall submit their qualifications statements electronically via the City’s Supplier Portal no later than 12 o’clock noon ET on May 14, 2020 (the “Submission Date”). Qualifications statement must be submitted in a form that conforms in all respects with the requirements specified in the WESA RFI. 

The WESA RFI will not itself result in the award of a contract, and is thus exempt from the public bidding requirements of M.G.L. c.30B. Subsequent to approval of the Program by the DPU, however, the City will issue its first request for proposal (“RFP”) for a wholesale energy supply agreement (“WESA”) to secure full-requirements electricity supply for Customers. All Respondents that satisfy the criteria set forth in the  WESA RFI, and that successfully negotiate a form of WESA with the City, shall be qualified to submit proposals in response to future City WESA RFPs. Proposals submitted in response to such future WESA RFPs by businesses, persons, or entities that have NOT been successfully prequalified in accordance with the WESA RFI will be deemed non-responsive, and will not be considered.

The City intends to select and sign a licensed retail supplier to provide customer service, account management, and other administrative services in support of the Program (the “Administrator”). The Administrator, however, would not be responsible for securing all requirements power supply. Instead, the City intends to issue WESA RFPs from time to time for all requirements wholesale supply service from wholesale suppliers prequalified pursuant to the WESA RFI. Any resulting wholesale supply agreements would be assigned and novated by the City to the Administrator, wherein the Administrator would, in effect, “sleeve” the wholesale all requirements contracts selected by the City.

In 2019, the City’s approximately 300,000 basic service LDC customers had an annual aggregated electric load of approximately 2 million MWh, exclusive of those electricity customers within the City who were then receiving electricity from third-party suppliers. These LDC customers, less those who exercise their right to opt-out of the Program and continue to receive LDC basic service, will be enrolled in the Program.

The  WESA RFI is not procurement or a solicitation to provide goods or services, but is being issued to qualify Respondents to submit proposals in response to future WESA RFPs. The WESA RFI does not in any way obligate the City to issue or amend a future WESA RFP, or to include any of the  WESA RFI provisions or  WESA RFI responses in any such WESA RFP.

All costs associated with responding to the  WESA RFI will be the sole responsibility of the Respondents.

The City and the Official reserve the right to waive any defects, or informalities, to accept or reject any or all qualifications statements, or any part or parts thereof, to invite the submission of additional information subsequent to the Submission Date, or to cancel the WESA RFI, if the City deems it to be in the best interests of the City so to do.

Carl Spector, Commissioner of the Environment