Recovery - award notice for support of smart grid interoperability standards and harmonization effort

Recovery: This acquisition is being funded from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.



The U. S. Department of Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Acquisition Management Division (AMD) awarded a contract consisting of a base period of six months, an option period one of six months and an option period two of one year to EnerNex Corporation to support NIST in fulfilling its responsibility to coordinate the development and harmonization of standards to enable widespread deployment of an interoperable and secure Smart Grid (SG). As part of this requirement, EnerNex Corporation will be required to engage all relevant SG stakeholders to ensure credible results.



The requirements of this acquisition do not lend themselves to any type of fixed-price contract because of significant uncertainties involved in the amount of hours required to perform individual requirements; uncertainty regarding where the Contractor will be located and, accordingly, the cost of travel to perform contract requirements; and uncertainty regarding where panel conferences will be held by the Contractor to meet contract requirements. Because of these uncertainties, the effect of using any type of fixed-price contract would (a) increase the cost to the Government because the Offeror, before award, would have to factor in significant risk into their price; and (b) would effectively reduce competition because some sources would refuse to assume risk that they cannot properly quantify in terms of cost.