ITN C006485 AMI Program.pdf

ITN# C006485, page 1

ITN# C006485

Advanced Metering Infrastructure Program

INVITATION

to

NEGOTIATE

ITN# C006485, page 2

ITN# C006485

INVITATION TO NEGOTIATE

ISSUE DATE: November 17, 2023

TITLE: Advanced Metering Infrastructure Program

DUE: December 15, 2023, by or before 2:00 PM EST

ISSUING OFFICE: Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, Procurement & Contracting

Department, 1900 Hotel Plaza Blvd., Lake Buena Vista, Florida 32830

The District will receive submittals until the time and date cited above. Only submittals received by the correct time and date will be recorded.

Anti-Collusion Statement/Public Domain

I, the submitting proposer, have not divulged, discussed, or compared this Invitation to Negotiate with any other proposer and have not colluded with any other proposer in the preparation of this proposal in order to gain an unfair advantage in the award of this contract. I acknowledge all information contained herein is part of the public domain as defined in the Public Records Act, Chapter 119, F.S.

1. GENERAL INFORMATION

1.1 The District requests qualified vendors to submit proposals and qualifications for consideration in the selection for Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) Technology and

Installation services.

1.2 All terms and conditions of this request, any addenda, proposer’s submissions and future negotiated terms are incorporated into the contract by reference as set forth herein.

1.3 All dates and information contained herein may be extended, changed, or updated.

Proposers are responsible for verifying all listing information before submitting a proposal to the Invitation to Negotiate (ITN).

2. INSTRUCTIONS TO RESPONDING VENDORS:

2.1 All proposals must be submitted to bids@oversightdistrict.org by or before 2:00 p.m. EST on December 15, 2023.

2.2 Proposals may not be submitted by any other means other than as described in Section

2.1. The District will not accept proposals sent by U.S. Mail, private couriers, or fax.

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2.3 Any proposals received after the stated time and date will not be considered.

2.4 Selection may be made directly from the ITN. After determination of the short list and initial evaluation, the District’s Contracting Officer will schedule negotiations with those proposers remaining.

2.5 All materials submitted as response to this ITN shall become the property of the District.

3. TIME SCHEDULE

3.1 The District will attempt to use the following time schedule that will result in the selection of a proposer.

Description Date All written questions and inquiries are due by 5:00 PM EST December 5, 2023 Proposals due by or before 2:00 PM EST December 15, 2023 Shortlist Committee Meeting TBD Negotiations As Scheduled District Approval Date TBD

NOTE: These dates are estimated dates only and subject to change.

3.2 Questions

A. Questions and requests for clarification regarding this Invitation to Negotiate must be submitted to the buyer, Rich Parente, at rparente@oversightdistrict.org. Responses will be made electronically. It is the responsibility of the proposers to check for updates.

4. AWARD

4.1 The District reserves the right to accept or reject any or all proposals.

4.2 The District reserves the right to waive any irregularities and technicalities and may, at its sole discretion, request a clarification or other information to evaluate any or all proposals.

4.3 The District will finalize a contract with the proposer with the accepted best-and-final offer.

If an agreement cannot be reached with that offeror, the District reserves the right to negotiate with the next lowest, responsive proposer (or subsequent proposers) until an agreement is reached.

4.4 The District reserves the right, prior to District approval, to cancel or terminate this ITN, any negotiations, or the proposed agreement, without penalty.

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5. INQUIRIES

5.1 Any and all questions must be submitted to the assigned buyer via email to rparente@oversightdistrict.org. Responses will be made through email. It is the responsibility of the proposers to check for updates.

5.2 If necessary, an addendum will be provided to all proposers.

5.3 It is our standard policy no addendum will be issued later than three (3) calendar days prior to the date for receipt of proposals, except an addendum withdrawing the Invitation to Negotiate or one which includes postponement of the date for receipt of proposals.

5.4 No verbal or written information which is obtained other than by information in this document or by addendum to this request will be binding on the District.

6. LOBBYING

6.1 PROPOSERS ARE HEREBY ADVISED THAT CONTACT IS NOT PERMITTED WITH ANY

DISTRICT PERSONNEL OR BOARD MEMBER RELATED TO, OR INVOLVED WITH THIS

REQUEST. ALL ORAL OR WRITTEN INQUIRIES MUST BE DIRECTED THROUGH THE

ASSIGNED PROCUREMENT PERSONNEL OR THE DISTRICT’S CONTRACTING OFFICER.

6.2 LOBBYING IS DEFINED AS ANY ACTION TAKEN BY AN INDIVIDUAL, FIRM, ASSOCIATION,

JOINT VENTURE, PARTNERSHIP, SYNDICATE, CORPORATION, AND ALL OTHER GROUPS

WHO SEEK TO INFLUENCE THE GOVERNMENTAL DECISION OF A DISTRICT BOARD

MEMBER OR ANY DISTRICT PERSONNEL AFTER ADVERTISEMENT AND PRIOR TO THE

BOARD VOTE ON THE AWARD OF THIS CONTRACT.

6.3 ANY PROPOSER OR ANY INDIVIDUALS THAT LOBBY ON BEHALF OF PROPOSER DURING

THE TIME SPECIFIED WILL RESULT IN REJECTION / DISQUALIFICATION OF SAID

INVITATION TO NEGOTIATE.

7. PREPARATION AND SUBMISSION

Proposer’s response shall be no more than 15 pages, excluding front covers, resumes, and a cover letter of up to two pages. Proposers who submit more than the pages indicated may not have the additional pages of the proposal read or considered. Proposals failing to provide sufficient information and assurances of performance to accurately assess each category below, or which fail to comply with the requirements and conditions of the Invitation to Negotiate will not be given further consideration.

At a minimum, the proposal shall include the following sections:

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A. Proposer Information: Name of the proposer, address, principals, telephone number, email address and taxpayer ID number. Include a brief history of the company.

B. Qualifications and Experience: Provide qualifications, resumes, and experience of the team based on the elements of this ITN. Emphasize the specific qualifications and experience from accounts similar to this scope for the key team members. Identify and provide in-depth information for the proposed project manager’s qualifications, track record and relevant experience.

C. References: Submit a minimum of two references. References should be from recent clients similar to what is being proposed.

D. Staffing Plan: Indicate Staffing Plan for all key team members. Specify the names of the persons who will be authorized to give and support information for your company. Provide their titles, addresses and telephone numbers. Identify all subcontractors along with their qualifications.

E. Approach and Methodology: Convey a clear understanding of the nature of the services and equipment you will be providing as to meet the requirements of Exhibit B - Scope of

Services, and your methodology to accomplish it. Explain why the proposed solution is best suited for the District’s utilities.

8. PROPOSAL EVALUATION PROCESS

8.1 The Selection Committee will be comprised of, at a minimum, three members. The committee may consist of representatives from various and appropriate District departments.

8.2 The committee members will independently score and rank each responsive proposal received in accordance with the evaluation criteria. During the Selection Committee meeting, the committee members will review the proposals and will submit their rankings for compilation of the overall ranking to determine a shortlist of proposals.

At that time, dates may be set for conducting interviews/negotiations with those vendors remaining on the short list. Shortlisted vendors will be notified either by email and/or telephone of the date and time. The District’s Contracting Officer will conduct the negotiations and has the final determination of award in the best interest of the District.

8.3 The District will enter into negotiations and will award to the vendor with the terms found to be most beneficial to the District after best-and-final offers are received.

ITN# C006485, page 6

9. EVALUATION CRITERIA

The Selection Committee shall rank all proposals received, The Selection Committee shall rank all letters received, by ordinal rankings, which meet the submittal requirements. The following factors will be considered in ranking the responsive letters received:

CRITERIA WEIGHT

Demonstrated depth of experienced personnel working on projects of similar nature. Similar size of meter infrastructure, across all utilities indicated, with multiple meter manufacturers.

Project understanding, approach, and management, including warranty and support/response time.

Project Cost 10

References, especially relative to projects similar in nature 10

TOTAL POSSIBLE POINTS 100

Buy Local, Veteran, and Opportunity Zone vendors. The definition of these vendor types can be found in the District’s Procurement Policy 5 bonus

10. CONFLICT OF INTEREST

10.1 All vendors must list all and any affiliations they have with other vendors.

10.2 The award hereunder is subject to the provisions of Chapter 112, Florida Statutes, as amended, governing conflict of interest. All proposers must disclose with each proposal the name of any officer, director or agent who is also a public or District employee. Further, proposers must disclose the name of any public employee who owns directly or indirectly an interest of five percent (5%) or more in the proposer's firm or any of its branches.

District employees, and appointed officials (herein referred to as "employees") may engage in outside activities and hold financial interests subject to the requirements of District’s

Employee Handbook, state law, and federal regulations and law, if applicable. Every employee who is an officer, director, agent, employee, or owner of a substantial interest in any business entity which does or anticipates doing business with the District ("District") must complete an "Officer and Employee Disclosure Statement" and file the statement with the required procurement documents submitted to the respective procurement staff member. A statement must be submitted with every procurement response if the proposer has a disclosure to document.

ITN# C006485, page 7

11. INDEMNIFICATION CLAUSE

The Proposer shall indemnify and hold harmless the District and their appointed officials, employees and volunteers from and against all claims, damages, losses and expenses, including legal costs, arising out of or resulting from the performance of this contract, provided that any such claim, damage, loss or expenses is attributed to bodily injury, sickness, disease, personal injury or death, or to injury to or destruction of tangible property including the loss or loss of use resulting there from and is caused in whole or in part by any negligent act or omission of the Proposer.

12. QUALIFIED CONTRACTORS (NATURAL GAS)

All work that is performed on the District owned natural gas utility shall be in strict accordance with the Operator Qualified (OQ) requirements as established and adapted by the District. The

OQ requirements as defined by 49 CFR Part 192, Subpart N prescribes the minimum requirements for operator qualification of individuals performing covered tasks on a pipeline facility. Covered task is an activity, identified by the operator that:

A. Performed on a pipeline facility;

B. Is an operations or maintenance task;

C. Is performed as a requirement of this part; and

D. Affects the operations or integrity of the pipeline.

Covered tasks are evaluated on a project-by-project basis, and are subject to change based on the work being performed.

13. COST INCURRED IN RESPONDING

All costs directly or indirectly related to Invitation to Negotiate preparation, representation or clarification shall be the sole responsibility of and be borne by the proposer.

14. EXHIBITS

Exhibit A – Background Information

The Central Florida Tourism Oversight District (the CFTOD or, the District) is a unique entity comprised of six (6) utilities including natural gas, potable water, reclaimed water, electric, hot water and chilled water that provide utility services to area customers.

The District is requesting submittals from qualified advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) vendors able to deliver a comprehensive solution including meters, endpoints, network and

ITN# C006485, page 8 headend system to the District’s six (6) utilities. The proposer should be able to fulfill the requirements listed in Exhibit B – Scope of Services as part of their AMI solution. For the purposes of this invitation to negotiate (ITN), proposer refers to those responding to this ITN.

This project will be implemented in multi-year stages, with each stage providing metering and infrastructure to a different District utility or utilities. The first stage of this project will provide metering and infrastructure for the natural gas utility. The following Scope of Services outlines the natural gas utility needs. It also outlines the needs and requirements for the other utilities.

All proposers should be able to provide AMI services that are inclusive of all the District utilities noted above. The proposer should include infrastructure and implementation for all the utilities in their proposal and pricing.

Metering Systems Information

The proposer is required to provide an AMI system that will be compatible with all the District’s utilities (natural gas, potable and reclaimed water, electric and hot and chilled water). This system can include multiple manufacturers of meters and AMI systems. They must all be integrated to a single Customer Information System (CIS).

The following details describing the current infrastructure of District utilities are for information and are to be used to construct and price this proposal. All meter and endpoint totals are approximate and should be verified upon award by the proposer for any “Best and Final” offer as part of the negotiation process. A nominal number of meter and endpoints may be added to the scope if the system expands to meet the growing needs of the system.

The natural gas utility will be the first to fully implement this AMI program. Currently, the majority of the utility’s existing meters are manually read. For natural gas, the District is looking to replace all meters that are aging out of service and retrofit those meters that still have serviceable life remaining. Initial evaluation suggests that approximately 150 meters will need to be replaced. A total of 230 endpoints will need to be installed on replaced meters, or retrofitted to existing meters. All meters will require a new endpoint regardless of the meter being replaced or retrofitted.

Natural Gas Utility Infrastructure Count

Meters to be Replaced 150

Meters to be Retrofitted 80

New Endpoints to be Supplied 230

ITN# C006485, page 9

The water utility (including both potable and reclaimed systems) currently utilizes Sensus endpoints to read the majority of meters (approximately 475) with a handheld receiver while driving the property. Those meters outfitted with a Sensus endpoint are AMI compatible.

Depending on the AMI solution chosen, it is possible the 475 existing meters currently utilizing

Sensus endpoints may need to be retrofitted with a different endpoint, or meter interface unit.

The remaining water meters (approximately 180) are read manually and will need to be replaced with a new meter and fitted with an endpoint.

Water Utility Infrastructure Count

Meters to be Replaced* 180

Meters to be Retrofitted* 0 - 475

New Endpoints to be Supplied 180 - 655

The electric utility has an Itron AMI system currently in place with 1,100 existing meters utilizing this network. Of these AMI units, it is anticipated that 20% are reaching end of life and will need to be replaced in this program (220 AMI units). Approximately 400 meters are currently read via Itron AMR while around 25 meters are read manually. All of these 425 meters will need to be replaced and fitted with an endpoint. Depending on the AMI solution chosen, it is possible that the 1,100 existing meters fitted with Itron endpoints may need to be retrofitted with a different endpoint, or meter interface unit. *Note that only infrastructure is necessary in the proposal for the Electric Utility with all installation to be self-performed.

Electric Utility Infrastructure Count

Meters to be Replaced 425

Meters to be Retrofitted 220 – 1,100

New Endpoints to be Supplied 645 – 1,525

The hot and chilled water utility has a combination of Aquisuite AMI and manual reading of its existing meters (approximately 40). Each of these meters will need to be replaced with a new meter and fitted with an endpoint as part of this program.

ITN# C006485, page 10

Hot and Chilled Water Utility Infrastructure Count

Meters to be Replaced 40

Meters to be Retrofitted 0

New Endpoints to be Supplied 40

The graphic below summarizes the number of meters by utility that are read manually and semi-automatically with AMR technology, or are fully automatic utilizing AMI technology.

Network Information

The District currently utilizes an Itron fixed network for its electric meters. These include seven

(7) collectors and ten (10) repeaters which cover the whole service area. Additionally, the District utilizes fiber backhaul at all collector sites. It should be noted that the District diligently undertakes measures to mitigate visual disruption. Consequently, the placement, height and configuration of collectors will be subject to restrictions.

Customer Information System

The District currently utilizes CIS Infinity from Advanced Utility Systems. The District expects to continue to utilize this system (with relevant upgrades) through the life of the AMI system.

ITN# C006485, page 11

Exhibit B – Scope of Services

In the first phase of work, the vendor will be required to implement and install an AMI system

(including endpoints, network, and data systems) for the natural gas utility. Once this phase is underway, the other utilities will be gradually incorporated into the program. The proposer should provide a solution for system-wide AMI that incorporates the information and requirements herein and would best suit the needs of the District’s six (6) utilities. The rollout of this AMI solution should be complete by the end of 2026 (full AMI across all utilities). While the District is open to adopting an AMI solution that incorporates multiple vendors with up to a maximum of two (2) networks, proposers should highlight complexities (if any) that may arise if a multi-vendor approach is employed.

A complete proposal will include the following topics:

1. Proposed approach to update all metering systems through AMI, including schedule;

2. Technical specifications for proposed meters, endpoints and network including:

a. Useful operating life and battery life of endpoints;

b. Maintenance and testing needs for all proposed meters and endpoints;

c. Network equipment;

d. Endpoint events and alarms;

3. Headend system specifications & operations;

4. Software systems and integrations including:

a. Configurability and firmware management;

5. IT standards and security including:

a. Cyber security and backhaul;

6. Testing and system acceptance;

7. Warranty including:

a. All equipment and network devices;

b. Maintenance requirements;

8. Installation support services including:

a. Natural Gas; and

b. Water (potable, reclaimed, hot and chilled).

Note: Installation is not required for the Electric Utility as this will be self-performed.

Additional Information Requested:

1. Proposer shall provide references from at least three (3) similar sized (or larger) combination systems within the past three (3) years including:

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a. Installer references;

b. Equipment references (preferred for combination projects including natural gas, water, and electric meters, endpoints, and network infrastructure);

c. CIS Integration references (preferred to CIS Infinity);

2. Provide equipment specifications sheets; and

3. Provide expected failure rate information over 15 and 20-year lifespans.

Pricing

Proposer shall provide a price for the purchase, delivery and installation of all system components and services (including network and CIS integration). Please note, the proposer must meet the District’s Qualifications and Requirements for Third Party Vendors and

Contractors (Section 12 – Qualified Contractors).