09__FAR_PART_6_-_JOFOC_-_Version_2_-_Redacted_1.pdf

JOFOC

Power Industry Energy Scheduling, Trading, Settlements, E-Tagging, and Operations Web-Hosted Applications

THIS DOCUMENT IS PROTECTED UNDER EXEMPTION 5, DELIBERATIVE PROCESS

PRIVILEGE, OF THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT, 5 USC 552

Justification for Other than Full and Open Competition

Western Area Power Administration Power Industry Energy Scheduling, Trading, Settlements, E-Tagging, and Operations Web-Hosted Applications

FAR 6.302-1 Sole Source

Fiscal Year 2022

1. Identification of the agency and the contracting activity.

The United States Department of Energy, Western Area Power Administration (WAPA), Rocky Mountain Region (RMR), Loveland, Colorado.

2. The nature and/or description of the action being approved.

WAPA RMR plans to contract by means of other than full and open competition due to the circumstances described below for Power Industry Energy Scheduling, Trading, Settlements, E-Tagging, and Operations Web- Hosted Applications that supports RMR, Desert Southwest (DSW), Sierra Nevada Region (SNR), Colorado River Storage Project (CRSP), and Upper Great Plains Region (UGP). This document sets forth the justification and approval for the use of a firm fixed-price, sole source contract for a base period of one year and four each one-year options, for a total of five years, with Open Access Technologies International, Inc. (OATI) for Power Industry Energy Scheduling, Trading, Settlements, E-Tagging, and Operations Web-Hosted Applications utilized by the Operations and Merchant Divisions of WAPA. This procurement is a renewal of existing services for highly specialized Web-Hosted Applications and Software to help WAPA manage energy transactions on the bulk electric system (BES). These services include software tools that help WAPA manage its generation and transmission resources, schedule purchases and sales of electricity and transmission capacity, interact with energy markets, perform after the fact settlements, and compile reports, among other tasks.

3. A description of the supplies or services required to meet the agency’s needs.

WAPA requires maintenance, support, and continued access of the 24x7x365 subscription-based services as described below. Each of these requirements is necessary for WAPA to meet its unique business requirements.

Each service must be provided with production and necessary test environments, where applicable. These services are cohesively integrated with each other to allow Power Marketing, Settlements, and Power Operations to carry out necessary and mission-critical functions.

E-Tagging provides the Balancing Authorities (BAs) a reliable approval and agent tagging service and addresses a critical business requirement. Contractor E-Tagging is a full featured E-Tagging solution supporting tag agent, tag authority, and tag approval services as needed by participants. WAPA–SNR subscribes to both Reliability and Merchant Tagging Services. E-Tagging Services shall be fully compliant with the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), North American Energy Standards Board (NAESB), and Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) protocol and standards both now and in the future and includes NAESB E-Tagging Spec 1.8.2. WAPA requires that the E-Tagging service have an Electric Industry Data Exchange (EIDE) interface to transfer tie line interchange data in. Once checkouts are completed on this data it must automatically transfer from the E- Tagging service to the WECC Interchange Tool (WIT) per the WECC interchange standards and NERC’s BAL standards. WAPA requires the E-Tagging system to automatically share its Energy Transfer System Resources (ETSR) with the BAs OATI WebTrans system. WAPA must also be able to build reports from E-Tags. The E-Tagging tool must automatically exchange tie line data with neighboring utilities and allow for checkouts.

Power Industry Energy Scheduling, Trading, Settlements, E-Tagging, and Operations Web-Hosted Applications

Transmission and Scheduling subscription automates the management of the Open Access Same Time Information System (OASIS) transactions submitted by the open market customers. WAPA is procuring the use of the Transmission and Scheduling subscription for this purpose. This option requires subscription to OASIS.

Transmission and Scheduling Energy Scheduling Module automates the management of scheduling and E-Tag transactions submitted by customers. WAPA is procuring the Transmission and Scheduling Energy Scheduling module subscription for this purpose. This option requires the Transmission and Scheduling subscription to function.

Transmission and Scheduling Curtailment Module automates the reliability management of scheduling and E-Tag transactions submitted by customers. WAPA is procuring the use of the Transmission and Scheduling Curtailment module subscription for this purpose. This option requires the Transmission and Scheduling subscription to function. Curtailment Manger allows Transmission Providers (TPs) to manage the curtailment of transmission schedules. The module automatically handles the TP’s OASIS posting obligations as directed in applicable Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) regulations and NAESB Business Practice Standards. This subscription service provides this functionality.

OASIS and Test Services posts unused capacity and receives transmission purchases from the open market via an OASIS. The OASIS subscription is required for many of these other services to function.

E-Tagging Repository Hosted Services automatically converts the E-Tagging data into scheduling data contained within an in-house developed scheduling system created by WAPA personnel. The Contractor customized a subscription product Data Hosting Repository Service to fulfill this need. This service requires subscription to the E-Tagging Repository Hosted Services option to function.

FERC Requirements are due to material regulatory changes brought about by FERC Order 676-H which created additional compliance requirements and timelines for TPs, thus initiating Contractor development activities to support TPs meeting these requirements. FERC Order 676-H applies to both Non-Network Integrated Services and Network Integrated Services. This Order contains requirements and specifics to support NAESB, Wholesale Electric Quadrant (WEQ) Business Practices, and/or NERC Modeling, Data, and Analysis (MOD) Standards. Contractor shall customize solutions to comply with FERC Order requirements. In addition, implementation of FERC Order 676-H-NITS and 676-H-Non- NITS within all products and services shall be provided.

Accounting and Settlements Invoicing is a subscription service used to build custom calculations and custom reports utilizing WAPA meter data, Transmission and Scheduling, and Transmission Service Requests (TSR) data, Transmission and Scheduling Energy Scheduling data, and other data from integrated systems.

Automated Short-Term Firm Competition Services provides complex business processes required under the FERC Pro Forma Open Access Transmission Tariff (OATT) to automatically identify opportunities for higher priority TSR to take precedence and preempt earlier queued, but lower priority, requests, and ‘conditional’ reservations. WAPA requires the E-Tagging service and OASIS to automatically handle TSR per FERC’s requirements for preemption and WAPA’s business practices. The results from these calculations must be posted on WAPA’s OASIS sites and available to other transmission customers.

Transmission and Scheduling Simultaneous Submissions Window Module provides processing of TSRs submitted during a Simultaneous Submission Window (SSW) as required by FERC Order 890.

Power Industry Energy Scheduling, Trading, Settlements, E-Tagging, and Operations Web-Hosted Applications

Southwest Power Pool (SPP) Energy Imbalance Service (EIS) Western Area Colorado Missouri (WACM), RMR, and CRSP will use SPP Energy Imbalance Service to participate and submit to the SPP Western Energy Imbalance Service Market (WEIS) market for nine Market Participants. WAPA requires resources from Asset Owner (AO) under WAPA’s BA be synchronized from SPP into WAPA’s EIS software. This synchronization is based off WAPA’s business practices and is a highly specialized system.

Reliability Interchange Scheduling Systems (RISS) for Transmission and Scheduling provides a flexible, comprehensive web-based transmission management System designed to help TPs meet requirements. This solution automates and integrates transaction management, tagging, and OASIS activities through a seamless interface to other Contractor products. Its advanced calculation parameters are dynamically configured to meet WAPA’s unique requirements. This service includes Available Transmission Capacity (ATC), TSR, and Energy Scheduling modules. WAPA requires an integration between OASIS and our E-Tagging service. The E-Tagging service must calculate the ATC based on the Total Transfer Capabilities (TTC). The TTC is either provided by WAPA through an integration or manually entered in the system. Based on the TTC data, the ATC then must automatically be posted to WAPA’s OASIS site.

Common OASIS allows TPs to access vital public transmission information including public postage of outage information. This service is also FERC compliant. Its advanced market interface is dynamically configured to meet the unique requirements of WAPA–SNR and the customers who seek to use WAPA– SNR transmission.

Curtailment Manager for Transmission and Scheduling provides TPs with the tools to manage the curtailment of transmission schedules. It allows users to easily determine curtailment amounts computed to the TP business practices. The module automatically handles OASIS posting obligations required of the TP, as specified in applicable FERC regulations and NAESB Business Practice Standards. This provides the ability for a TP to adjust transmission ratings and reflect those ratings on the transmission scheduling rights of their customers.

Conditional Curtailment Options (CCO) Module for Transmission and Scheduling provides the TP with the functionality to comply with the FERC Order 890, as well as the NAESB Standards which are adopted under FERC Order 676-E. These Orders establish certain requirements to be implemented in the handling of Long-term Firm, Point-to-Point Transmission Service Agreements that are executed as a Conditional Firm service.

Report Builder for RISS builds reporting calculations based on WAPA business requirements. The Report Builder module is a subscription based sub-component of the Transmission and Scheduling Module and requires subscription to the Transmission and Scheduling Energy Scheduling Module to function

Entity Registry and Reporting Database Digital Certificates manages the Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and Certificate Authority (CA) systems for administration and management of Entity Registry and Reporting Database Digital Certificates for WAPA and its registries.

Report Generator for Merchant Transaction and Management System (MTMS) allows users to create detailed reports provides flexibility to adjust the reports as business needs change. Reports can be run and viewed interactively on demand or automatically on a pre-set schedule, including distribution via e-mail or File Transfer Protocol (FTP). The Report Generator will support reports on Deals, Transmission Deals, Schedules, Bookouts, and Calculation Engine Data. The Report Generator also allows a user to create reports in PDF format.

Power Industry Energy Scheduling, Trading, Settlements, E-Tagging, and Operations Web-Hosted Applications

Market Solution Premium Compliance Service provides planning, development, testing, and production deployments associated with future ISO/RTO Markets Substantive Compliance changes. This service avoids future costs to WAPA associated with substantive compliance changes imposed by the Regional Transmission Owner (RTO), California Independent System Operator (CAISO), and SPP for the modules related to the WEIS, Energy Imbalance Market (EIM), and Market Redesign and Technology Upgrade (MRTU).

Market Re-design and Technology Upgrade (MRTU) Interface provides a comprehensive and streamlined Web-Based Transaction Management/Scheduling System that enables Scheduling Coordinators to participate and to conduct business in the emerging CAISO MRTU Market. This also includes the CAISO Predictive Calculator for the CAISO MRTU Market Module which provides California Energy Market participants the capability to predict the cost of transactions in the CAISO Market.

E-Tagging Repository Service is an integrated middle-ware system that allows WAPA to interact with the contractor applications from within their back-office systems. The system provides E-Tags and transmission reservation data in the database. Provides download, query, and manipulation functionality between E-Tag and WAPA. Contractor Data Hosting Repository Service provides a replica of the E- Tagging database on the Client side, alerts the Client's application about tagging events, and initiate Customer-written procedures and pass data into them.

Enabling Electric Industry Data Exchange (EIDE) in MTMS enables EIDE data transfers within the WAPA-SNR MTMS and other external sources to send calculation engine objects, meter values, load data, and market prices to the WAPA Accounting and Settlements Invoicing system.

California Independent System Operator (CAISO) Bidding Module is a comprehensive, web-based RTO trading solution designed to meet the specific requirements of CAISO Scheduling Coordinators.

The trading function simplifies bid submission and tracking, provides a comprehensive MRTU position, and automatically alerts users to discrepancies between InterTie bids and E-Tags. This allows users to submit ancillary service bids for spin and non-spin into the CAISO both for units within the CAISO market as well as at tie points for units located outside of the CAISO Market.

Disaster Recovery and Hot Standby is a software solution that provides WAPA with a 24/7, redundant, high availability environment. Disaster Recovery involves a set of policies, tools, and procedures to enable the recovery or continuation of vital technology infrastructure and systems following a natural or human-induced disaster. The Hot Standby is used as a failover mechanism to provide reliability in system configurations. The hot spare is active and connected as part of a working system. When a key component fails, the hot spare is switched into operation.

MTMS and MTMS Report Generator Service gives power marketers, merchant utility groups, and generation operators a flexible and comprehensive web-based trading system designed for unique enterprise requirements. It integrates financial and physical trading with OASIS, E-Tagging, and scheduling into a single system. Contractor’s MTMS Power provides a common interface for all trading business needs, eliminating data entry duplication, reducing errors, and streamlining the trading process.

The system must allow automatic MTMS schedule creation from tags. The schedules will be created based on the configuration settings controlled by WAPA Users.

CAISO EIM Service Entity Scheduling Coordinator Market Solution software must sync to the Balancing Authority of Northern California (BANC) Entity Scheduling Coordinator (EESC) system.

BANC BA has two Sub-Balancing Areas, one of which is WAPA that have a separate OATT from BANC. WAPA participates in the CAISO EIM Market under BANC. WAPA must consume BANC allocations of costs and charge for EESC transactional settlements from CAISO EIM in a settlement

Power Industry Energy Scheduling, Trading, Settlements, E-Tagging, and Operations Web-Hosted Applications system that also performs additional market settlements, like Participating Resource Scheduling Coordinator (PRSC) and MRTU, see below for additional descriptions. This synchronization is based off WAPA’s business practices and is a highly specialized system. The system must also integrate external data from various sources and formats, create analytical reports and export data to meet WAPA requirements. The system must allocate EESC settlement costs and charges from BANC to WAPA customers and generate reports and export data for WAPA billing functions. The system must allow WAPA users to add new CAISO or BANC EESC charge codes, delete obsolete CAISO or BANC EESC charge codes and assign or change allocation methods within the existing allocation methods.

CAISO EIM Service Participating Resource Scheduling Coordinator (PRSC) market scheduling solution, with integrated settlement system must handle multiple aggregate resources, bidding, and other market requirements, with Real-Time dashboards for monitoring EIM. The settlement system must comply with CAISO’s Business Practice Manuals (BPM) and provide future changes at the same time as CAISO implementation of initiatives, as well as provide WAPA designed customizations to allocate charges to a subset of customers. This allocation methodology is based off WAPA’s business practices and is a highly specialized system. The system provides analytics and billing output reports in WAPA’s required format to integrate with WAPA’s billing system. The system must also consume external data from various sources and formats, create analytical reports, and export data to meet WAPA requirements. The system must permit the addition of new CAISO charge codes, deletion of obsolete CAISO charge codes and allow WAPA users to assign or change allocation methods within the existing allocation methods.

MRTU Market Solution Settlements is for CAISO Day Ahead market scheduling coordinator solution that is integrated with settlements. The system must include all market defined points, include market price data and address subsets of customers under a single scheduling coordinator User Identification (ID). Settlement system must comply with CAISO’s BPM and provide future changes at the same time as CAISO implementation of initiatives, as well as provide WAPA designed requirements for allocating charges to a subset of customer. This system also provides analytics and billing output reports in WAPA’s required format to integrate with WAPA’s with billing system. The system must also consume external data from various sources and formats, create analytical reports, and export data to meet WAPA requirements. The system must permit the addition of new CAISO charge codes, deletion of obsolete CAISO charge codes and allow WAPA users to assign or change allocation methods within the existing allocation methods. The system must allocate each CAISO charge to the subset of customers, this allocation methodology is based off WAPA’s business practices and is a highly specialized system.

Market Optimization and Bidding System for WAPA EIM is for WAPA’s specific bidding methods, with customizable algorithms for determining price points. Includes multiple aggregate resource points, non-generating resources, and other types of future resources. Provide reporting and analytics, ability to consume data and export data to other external systems.

Premium Market Compliance for MTMS includes substantive compliance changes imposed by the RTO/Independent System Operator Corporation (ISO) markets for the currently subscribed Merchant Transaction and Management System Market Solutions as listed below. Contractor will provide planning, development, testing, and production deployments associated with future ISO/RTO Markets Substantive Compliance changes. For Registered Entity Code WAPA’s Sierra Nevada (WASN) and Western Area Mid-Pacific Premium Compliance excludes new/replacement markets, optional functionality, and non-software costs (i.e., hardware costs).

Calculation and MTMS Calculation and Reporting Service Engine is an application component available for the MTMS service. CALC and MTMS Calculation and Reporting Service gives the ability to access transactions from MTMS, calculates values with a point-and-click formula editor, and creates customized reports to make data easily accessible.

Power Industry Energy Scheduling, Trading, Settlements, E-Tagging, and Operations Web-Hosted Applications

Market Solution Premium Compliance Services includes minor RTO/ISO Market Compliance changes as part of the base service and substantive compliance changes imposed by the RTO/ISO markets for the currently subscribed MTMS Market Solutions as listed below for MRTU.

Congestion Revenue Rights (CRR) Pricing Nodes provides for pricing nodes in RTO to receive Locational Marginal Price (LMP) prices for the MRTU market. Congestion revenue rights (CRR) are financial instruments, made available through the CRR allocation, CRR auction and Secondary Registration System, that enable CRR holders to manage variability in congestion costs based on locational marginal pricing. CRRs are acquired primarily, although not solely, for the purpose of offsetting integrated forward market congestion costs that occur in the day-ahead market.

Electric Quarterly Reporting (EQR) Service is required by FERC. The EQR is the reporting mechanism FERC uses for public utilities to fulfill their responsibility under section 205(c) of the Federal Power Act (FPA) to maintain rates and charges on file in a convenient form and place. The EQR contains Seller-provided data summarizing contractual terms and conditions in agreements for all jurisdictional services, including cost-based sales, market-based rate sales, and transmission service, as well as transaction information for short-term and long-term market-based power sales and cost-based power sales. Certain non-public utilities are also required to file EQRs under section 220 of the FPA.

WAPA is required to meet FERC, NERC, WECC and NAESB regulations and standards while performing mission critical functions. These Contractor provided services enable WAPA to comply with the administrative, development, and maintenance duties associated with performing our unique business requirements while also meeting those standards. To perform our mission critical work, WAPA requires a system that is highly reliable, responsive, and capable of integrating and interacting “real-time” with the utility industry participants’ third-party systems and WAPA’s internal systems. The OATI web-hosted software applications and related support provide the required functionality for WAPA to perform our Power Marketing, Settlement and Power Operations functions in compliance with FERC, NERC, WECC and NAESB regulations and standards.

4. The statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition.

The Competition in Contracting Act (41 U.S.C. 253(c)(1)), under FAR 6.302-1(a)(2)(ii)(A) and FAR 6.302- 1(a)(2)(ii)(B), authorizes other than full and open competition when the services needed are available from only one responsible source and no other services will satisfy the needs of the agency. This requirement is for a highly specialized system. Switching Contractors would result in both unacceptable duplication in transition cost and would also result in unacceptable delays. OATI is the only source capable of providing OASIS, a proprietary software owned by OATI, which WAPA is required to use. Additionally, the transition time resulting in changing from already interwoven systems to new software would likely result in four years of integration – nearly the entire life of the anticipated contract. Such delays would not satisfy the present needs of WAPA and are unacceptable given the on-going need for these services. Furthermore, procuring Power Industry Energy Scheduling, Trading, Settlements, E-Tagging, and Operations Web-Hosted Applications through another Contractor would result in significant duplication of cost to the Government, which is not expected to be recovered through competition for a new system. WAPA estimates the integration costs from switching contractors for these services would be over $8.4M. This would be a significant duplication of costs compared to the intended sole source contract estimated to be $13.25M. Having only one responsible source to supply services that satisfy agency requirements and follow-on procurements involving highly specialized equipment that, if awarded to another source, would result in substantial duplication of costs that are not expected to be recovered through competition are two exceptions that apply to the procurement action under consideration.

Power Industry Energy Scheduling, Trading, Settlements, E-Tagging, and Operations Web-Hosted Applications

5. A statement demonstrating the unique qualifications of the proposed contractor or the nature of the action requiring the use of the authority.

WAPA has been using OATI’s software applications for over 20 years to facilitate the functionality needed to be compliant with the FERC, NERC, NAESB, and WECC standards. During this 20 years WAPA has contracted with OATI to customize the modules to fit WAPA’s unique business requirements. The OATI software is one of many various applications and modules that are interdependent within WAPA’s environment. WAPA has developed many integrations between these disparate applications creating a very complex automated solution. It is imperative for business continuity and reliability of the BES, that WAPA continues its uninterrupted subscription of these software applications.

WAPA is a member of WesTTrans which requires all members to use the same OASIS. OATI hosts and maintains WesTTrans OASIS; therefore, WAPA is required to use the OATI webOASIS product for its OASIS.

As a BANC member, SNR must use OATI’s EIM software to schedule within its market. The OATI software automatically syncs between the sub-entities within BANC and BANC to allow BANC to balance within the

EIM.

Southwest Power Pool (SPP) provides Reliability Coordinator services to WAPA. For these services WAPA requires digital certificates to access its application. OATI is the only certificate authority that is approved by

SPP.

WAPA requires the E-Tagging service and OASIS services be provided by the same Contractor. WAPA is required by FERC to post the ATC on OASIS. ATC is calculated using data from both OASIS and E-Tagging, which is then automatically posted to OASIS. WAPA also requires the solution to automatically identify opportunities for higher priority TSRs to take precedence and preempt earlier queued, but lower priority, requests.

OASIS and the E-Tagging service both have data needed to accomplish these tasks. Due to the complexity of data exchange and the potential compliance risk of not meeting these requirements WAPA require both E-Tagging and OASIS services be provided by the same contractor. OATI’s software meets all these requirements, eliminating the risk from WAPA of being non-compliant or worse, overloading and causing outages of the BES.

As part of E-Tagging system OATI developed the BA Tie Checkout tool, this tool is used by RMR and DSW to transfer and checkout the tie line values with neighboring utilities without having to make a phone call and manually enter values into the OATI systems. This system was developed by OATI based on WAPA and its neighboring utilities it is NOT available from any other Contractor.

As part of the E-Tagging system OATI developed advanced user defined interfaces (AUDI) used for Resource Obligations. These AUDI perform calculations on tags based on the scheduling practices of RMR’s balancing authority. This customized tool was developed by OATI specifically for WAPA therefor it would NOT be available from any other Contractor.

OATI’s services have been fully integrated with WAPA’s internally developed systems and Commercial-off-the- Shelf (COTS) software. WAPA has spent significant money, time, and resources to integrate internal systems with OATI’s services to be compliant with regulatory requirements as well as industry standards and practices. If a change to another Contractor were required, the new Contractor’s services would require a new integration with WAPA’s systems. It would require approximately 8.4 million dollars over a period of approximately four (4) years for WAPA to implement a new Contractors system. During this period of integration, implementation, and testing, WAPA would need to continue using OATI’s services to maintain uninterrupted performance of mission critical functions to deliver federal hydropower, meet WAPA’s firm contract obligations, and participate in both the CAISO EIM and SPP WEIS.

Power Industry Energy Scheduling, Trading, Settlements, E-Tagging, and Operations Web-Hosted Applications

Changing Contractors would require re-training and requalifying all WAPA reliability operators, trainers, supervisors/managers, and support SMEs. This training is estimated to take between 200 and 300 hours per individual prior to implementation. This pre-implementation training would have to be conducted while also ensuring the operators still receive training on the current software. The upkeep of an individual’s training qualifications for the initial 3 to 5 years post-implementation could be an additional 75 to 125 hours per operator per year. Currently the upkeep of an operator’s training and qualifications is from 15 to 30 hours per operator per year. This retraining and requalification at a minimum would cost $7.9M over the life of the contract and would be a cost not recovered through the competition.

If a different Contractor was chosen, WAPA’s records management requirements would require continued expenditures to maintain data with OATI for period of 10 years depending on the type of data.

WAPA estimates the project to implement a new Contractor’s system would take approximately four years.

During this time, WAPA would need to continue to subscribe to the current system and pay at least partially for the new system.

6. A description of efforts to ensure that offers were solicited from as many potential sources as is practicable.

As required by Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Subpart 5.2, a notice of intent to sole source was publicized on www.fedconnect.net and www.sam.gov on 24 November 2021 under 89503222RWA000015 and again on 26 August 2022 under 89503222QWA000452. Special Notice 89503222QWA000452 was amended on 31 August 2022.

7. Cite the anticipated dollar value of the proposed acquisition including options if applicable and a determination by the Contracting Officer that the anticipated cost to the Government will be fair and reasonable.

This proposed contract is for a base period of one year and four each one-year options for a total of five years for WAPA’s RMR, DSW, SNR, CRSP, and UGP, estimated to be worth $13,250,197.12. OATI shall be required to comply with the criteria in FAR Part 15 and submit other than cost and or pricing data to ensure that the Government is charged no more than the general public. In past awards, OATI has given WAPA additional discounts. WAPA will use OATI past awards for price comparisons and OATI’s proposed pricing will be compared to the Government estimate for this project.

8. A description of the Market Research (MR) conducted and the results or a statement of the reason MR was not conducted.

An initial Sole Source Intent Notice (Notice) was publicized on www.fedconnect.net and www.sam.gov on 24 November 2021 with a response date and time of 30 November 2021, 2:00 PM (MD). Another Notice was posted on 26 August 2022 with a response date and time of 31 August 2021, 4:30 PM (MD) this second Notice was amended from a bridge contract to a 5-year contract on 31 August 2021 and extended the closing date and time to 06 September 2022, 4:30 PM (MD).

Market research performed and the Notices for this acquisition identified two interested Contractors, OATI and MCG Energy Solutions, LLC (MCG).

Timely responses to the Notice were received from MCG to the initial Notice and subsequent Notice and Amendment 0001. MCG advised it can provide these services via its General Services Administration (GSA) Federal Supply Schedule (FSS) contract as a small business. WAPA reviewed MCG’s response and Capability Statements (Statements) submitted in response to WAPA’s Notices and gave it careful consideration. MCG’s Statements did not adequately demonstrate it can meet all WAPA’s requirements. MCG’s responses were not directly responsive to the criteria listed in the Notices and did not challenge the reasoning WAPA offered in its

Power Industry Energy Scheduling, Trading, Settlements, E-Tagging, and Operations Web-Hosted Applications

Notices to make a direct award to OATI. WAPA was only able to identify one small business on GSA FSS able to provide these types of services.

Crucially, MCG lacks a critical module WAPA requires as described in section 3 above. MCG does not demonstrate it can meet WAPA’s specifications for providing OASIS. MCG’s response also does not demonstrate the cost savings to WAPA that it claims to offer. The implementation and development costs and burdens WAPA would face for splitting requirements, conducting separate procurements, and implementing incomplete solutions are well documented in paragraph 5 above.

Over the last few years WAPA has performed market research during projects. In 2020, WAPA was joining the SPP WEIS, WAPA received demonstrations and pricing from OATI and MCG on their WEIS modules. At that time, OATI was chosen due to MCG’s pricing methodology which made MCG significantly more costly than OATI. In 2022, WAPA SNR switched Contractors for its settlements system, WAPA evaluated multiple Contractors during this process and after the evaluations WAPA chose OATI.

Of the two interested Contractors, only OATI can provide for the full requirements. WAPA was not able to identify two or more GSA FSS small business Contractors to provide these types of services. WAPA identified one GSA FSS small business, MCG, however, this Contractor is not able to provide all the required services.

9. Any other facts supporting the use of other than full and open competition such as:

WAPA has invested considerable money, time, and resources into integrating and customizing the services provided by the existing source, OATI, that are not expected to be recovered through competition. The burden to the Government to integrate a new source is detailed in paragraph 5 above. In addition, if WAPA were to switch companies, it would suffer a minimum four year set back along with excessive cost and productivity impacts associated with re-engineering business processes and interfaces with existing mission critical business systems.

MCG protested the Sole Source Intent Notice posted on 24 November 2021 to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) after WAPA notified MCG that its capabilities statement did not adequately demonstrate it could meet WAPA’s requirements. GAO dismissed the protest after DOE/WAPA determined to take corrective action to revisit its requirements and acquisition strategy to either reaffirm its approach to award this requirement to a sole source or make a different determination. WAPA has now extensively reviewed and reevaluated its requirements and acquisition strategy using subject matter experts and explored acquisition alternatives, as summarized in paragraph 5 above.

10. A listing of the sources, if any, that expressed a written interest in the acquisition.

MCG Energy Solutions, LLC’s (MCG) Open Access Technologies International, Inc. (OATI)

11. A statement of actions the agency may take to remove or overcome any barriers to competition if subsequent acquisitions are anticipated.

OATI is the developer of this proprietary software and is the only technically qualified provider known to offer software support of its proprietary software applications. OATI does not license any of its software products or the maintenance of its databases. Subsequent acquisitions of similar services are not anticipated within the next five years. Due to the growth and changes in this industry, it is expected that new regulations and developments will occur. The impact of additional NAESB, NERC, FERC or WECC requirements for these services have reduced the handful of existing Contractors and may continue to do so; however, any additional Contractors and products that may become available at the time of the next required acquisition will be identified and evaluated at that time.