Agmt13 County of Alameda MOU Regional Renewable Energy Procurement

Browse Search

. Honorable Board Members Page 2 February 27, 2013 agreement on the terms of the MOU. Participating Agencies were involved in the drafting, review and finalization of the MOU language. The first draft of the MOU was circulated to agencies in mid- June, 2012. On July 23, 2012,the County of Alameda hosted a conference call for Participating Agency attorneys to discuss the MOU with County of Alameda County Counsel. Agencies were then invited to submit comments and revisions to the draft MOU. The County of Alameda reviewed these comments, and revisions were incorporated into a second draft of the MOU,which was distributed to agencies on September 7,2012. Agencies were again invited to submit comments and revisions. A final draft of the MOU was distributed on October 18, 2012, along with a memo conta.ining County of Alameda.'s response to a11 comments submitted on the second draft of the MOU. Under the terms of the MOU,Participating Agencies and the County of Alameda are not to withdraw sites from the project from the period 30 days prior to the solicitation issuance until vendors have been selected No penalty or liability sha11 accrue as a result of any withdrawal. The withdrawal provision is included in the MOU to reduce the risk of changes that could impact bid pricing and vendor cost models, and the risk of price increases to the other agencies participating in the project. The solicita.tion will include"bundles," inclusive of sites across agencies. The intention of bundling sites is to achieve economies of scale and sufficiently reduce vendors'transaction costs so as to receive the best pricing possible. If agencies are able to withdraw from the project from 30 days prior to the issuance of the RFP,or at any time during the solicitation, this will impact the bundling strategy, which may then negatively impact pricing for the other agencies included in that bundle. Of the 20 Participating Agencies, 13 agencies have already approved and signed the MOU, and fow additional agencies have approved the MOU but ha.ve not yet signed the agreement. Three agencies have not approved the MOi7 but are in the process of bringing it through their approval process. Only those agencies that have approved the agreement are listed as signatories to the MOU. The R-REP is based upon the successful Silicon Va11ey Collaborative Renewable Energy Procurement(SV REP)Project, which was the largest multi-agency procurement of renewable energy in the country at the time of completion. The R-REP expects to break this record with up to 30 MW of power generation potential combined across appro�rimaxely 170 sites. Alameda County conducted significant outreach for the R REP over the last 18 months. Means of outreach included four workshops for prospective participants; email marketing; direct phone calls;briefings at various meetings held by other organizations (including one to facilities managers at Alameda County schools); and an invitation to participate in the project sent by Supervisor Scott Haggerty to the Mayors and City Managers of every city in the four counties. All cities in Alameda.County were directly contacted with regazd to this project, as were the Alameda County Office of Education,AC Transit,BART, and the Port of Oaldand As a result of the e�rtensive outreach effort and the participants'shazed objective to reduce operating costs, 20 agencies are continuing to actively participate in the R-REP. Engaging in a collaborative procurement process leads to a significant reduction in the cost of renewable energy generation systems and transaction costs. Collaboration also improves the leverage for public agencies in the negotiations of renewable energy systems. The installation of renewable energy will lead to sustained reductions in utilities operating costs. In addition,the projects will enable the County of Alameda and other participants to achieve their 2020 Climate Action Plan targets for reduced Crreenhouse Gas Emissions from government operations.