A.02 Sole Source Determination Final_Redacted.pdf

Control Number# OJL-21-0013

a. Background: Bonneville Lock and Dam is currently in the design phase of replacing oil circuit breakers with 16 vacuum breakers in Powerhouse 1. In addition, all the new breakers for station service in Powerhouse 1 are being replaced with vacuum breakers. Powerhouse 2 has recently received all new station service vacuum breakers. All of these breakers need maintenance to verify vacuum integrity. This new test set is designed to show what percentage of vacuum is remaining so that during routine maintenance, vacuum integrity can be tracked to prevent unexpected failures.

b. Justification: The correct test equipment is critical for a robust preventative maintenance program. This test set will allow the project to monitor the health of all the vacuum breakers on project. This will decrease unplanned outages and failures. Until now, the accepted field service test for vacuum interrupters has been a simple Go/No-Go test performed with an AC high potential test (hi-pot).

Today, testing with the Magnetic Atmospheric Condition (MAC) test sets can prevent unnecessary damage to circuit breakers and contactors by predicting the usable life of the vacuum interrupter. The unique, patented flexible magnetic field test coil enables vacuum bottle interrupters to be tested in-place, while installed in the circuit breaker or contactor.

c. Impact: Currently Bonneville uses a hi-pot to test the health of a vacuum breaker. If the hi-pot test fails, the breaker is not placed in service and at that time a replacement plan has to be developed. The vacuum bottle tester will allow us to track the health of a vacuum bottle and plan for a replacement instead of reacting to a failed test.

6. EFFORTS TO OBTAIN COMPETITION:

Based on information in paragraph 5, above, competition for this action is not feasible because the MAC-TS4 is manufactured and distributed by Group CBS, the parent company of the manufacturer (Vacuum Interrupters, Inc.) and three operating divisions (including Circuit Breaker Sales, LLC in the west) authorized to distribute the MAC-TS4.

A Notice of Intent to Sole Source was posted to the GPE on 30 March 2021 through 09 April 2021 to which no interested sources responded.

7. ACTIONS TO INCREASE COMPETITION:

No further actions to increase competition have been taken at this time.

8. MARKET RESEARCH:

The PO will be awarded to Circuit Breaker Sales, LLC, the primary operating division for

, as market research found no other sources who are registered on beta.sam.gov and offer pricing directly from the factory.

- the following top four results: 1) protecequip.com who is not registered in beta.sam.gov, 2) groupcbs.com who is not on