Hungry Horse Excitation System Replacement

The Department of the Interior Bureau of Reclamation is procuring excitation system replacement services for the Hungry Horse Powerplant located in Hungry Horse, Montana. The project involves designing, procuring, installing, and testing new excitation equipment across four generator units, including digital automatic voltage regulators, power system stabilizers, silicon-controlled rectifier (SCR) bridges, power potential transformers, protective relays, and associated control systems. The new system must provide precise voltage regulation within 0.5% under various load conditions, support field current up to 115% of rated current, and incorporate advanced protective features such as over/under-excitation limiters, volts-per-hertz protection, and field ground detection while achieving Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) compliance. A mandatory pre-bid site visit occurred on October 1, 2025, and written questions were due by October 23, 2025. The sealed bid opening is scheduled for December 17, 2025, at 1:00 PM Mountain Daylight Time in the Grand Coulee Conference Room at the Columbia Pacific Northwest Regional Office in Boise, Idaho, with electronic submissions prohibited.

This solicitation is a 100% small business set-aside under NAICS code 237990 (Other Heavy and Civil Engineering Construction) with a $45 million size standard and no identified incumbent contractors. The anticipated contract value ranges between $5 million and $15 million on a fixed-price basis. Work will be performed across multiple planned outage windows between 2027 and 2029, with a performance period requiring 10 calendar days to mobilize and 1,096 calendar days to complete all work. A mandatory bid bond or other acceptable guarantee equal to 20% of the bid price or $3 million, whichever is less, must accompany all bids. Bids must be mailed in sealed envelopes to the specified Columbia Pacific Northwest Regional Office address in Boise, Idaho, with sensitive project drawings available only after potential offerors execute a federal non-disclosure agreement.