lsj.pdf

Single Source Justification Western Area Power Administration

FAR 13.106-1(b)(1), Simplified Acquisitions

21WA140932

1. Identification of the agency and the contracting office.

Western Area Power Administration (WAPA), Upper Great Plains Region, Billings, Montana.

2. Description of supply or service required to meet the agency’s needs.

Purchase of Sun-Net Consulting Phase 4 Enhancements for Web-Based Software Applications and Support utilized by the Operations, Maintenance, Power Marketing, and Information Technology Divisions of WAPA. This procurement is for enhancements to the currently WAPA-Wide implemented Web-Based Software Application. The enhancements include changes to admin displays, email drop-down list for selection of sender, adding email information to outage request list, GANTT Chart based on filtered list with export functionality, setting default email attachments to cover sheet and switching, attachment column on all lists, copy cover sheet only, add substation log comments into transmission log, new columns and company field, view only to generic switching, desk name changes, auto email of outage request, ability to edit RTEng logs, interruption log being moved to right list, ability to copy and paste switching steps using mouse, testing and deployment, and project management. The Government intends to award a firm-fixed price order.

3. The rationale or circumstances for limiting competition.

WAPA requires specific, developed enhancements of the existing services which include:

24x7x365 subscription-based Transmisson Outage Software Suite (iTOA) for Scheduling and Coordination, Logging, Switching and Reporting.

iTOA Software Suite - Enterprise software that handles our Operations processes including long and short-term planning, to real-time logging and reporting. Functions within the iTOA are Outage/Work Request Planning, Scheduling and Coordination, Switching, electronic Logging for Operations and Dispatch events, logging for Interruptions and Forced Outages, Event Analysis and Reporting, Comprehensive Switching Program Writing and Retrieval, Substation Entry/Exit Logging via Substation Interactive Voice Response, ISO/RTO communication and NERC compliance and reporting.

These services are already in place and are intended to relieve WAPA of the administrative, development, and maintenance duties associated with North American Energy Standards Board (NAESB) standards for transmitting information regarding every electric power interchange transaction.

WAPA has been using Sun-Net’s TOA software suite to facilitate the functionality needed to be compliant with the FERC, NERC, NAESB and WECC standards. It is imperative for business continuity and reliability that WAPA continues its subscription for these software applications, uninterrupted. The various software applications are interdependent and cannot run without the other and cannot be reproduced by any other vendor due to iTOA being proprietary software.

All regions of WAPA utilize the iTOA Software Suite incorporates API interfaces with PeakRC and SPP for mandatory transmission availability reporting.

WAPA's internal developed systems and Commercial-off-the Shelf (COTS) software have been fully integrated with Sun-Net’s iTOA Software Suite, which, without the continued use of this service, WAPA would not be able to perform its Operation functions of scheduling coordination, switching, logging and reporting.

WAPA has spent significant money, time and resources to integrate these systems with Sun-Net’s services to be compliant with industry standards and practices. It would require approximately 3 years’ worth of additional time by six developers and four testers and cause significant cost to WAPA to integrate these new systems with another vendor's products. These costs would not be recovered through competition, not to mention it would disrupt the continuity of WAPA’s Power Operation's function. This does not include any customizations or enhancements that may be required of another vendor's product. Without these services, the Operation's will not be able to perform their duties of transmission outage planning, scheduling and reporting.