DS Rules

Yes, if an RFP Bidder is awarded any tranches and requires the Annual Gross Receipts Tax Electric Reseller Acknowledgment Form, PPL Electric will provide the Annual Gross Receipts Tax Electric Reseller Acknowledgment Form.

There is no bid fee for the Default Service RFP.

Yes. As set forth in Section 6.1.5 of the RFP Rules, the execution of a Transaction Confirmation is all that will be required in subsequent solicitations wherein an RFP Bidder that has previously executed the Default Service SMA in a satisfactory manner in DSP VI is awarded additional tranches.

The RFP Manager does not review drafts of Bid Assurance Letter of Credit prior to execution. However, RFP Bidders can provide proposed modifications to the Bid Assurance Letter of Credit by the qualification deadline. Please see Rules-FAQ-15 for additional information on the deadline to submit proposed modifications to the Bid Assurance Letter of Credit. If the submitted Bid Assurance Letter of Credit, in its current format, is not acceptable to PPL Electric, the RFP Manager will provide a deficiency notice requesting an amendment to your Bid Assurance Letter of Credit and will provide a deadline for receipt of such amendment. Please note that PPL Electric posts the lists of acceptable modifications to the Bid Assurance Letter of Credit to the Documents page of the RFP section of the RFP website each solicitation.

The standby irrevocable letter of credit must be issued by a bank or other financial institution with a minimum “A-” senior unsecured long-term debt rating (not supported by third-party credit enhancements, or, if unavailable, corporate issuer rating discounted one notch) from S&P and “A3” from Moody’s.

For purposes of Bid Assurance Collateral, RFP Bidders may provide Bid Assurance Collateral either in the form of cash or in the form of an electronic Letter of Credit.

No, these documents are not required as part of the Bidder Qualification process prior to the submittal of bid proposals.

Pursuant to Section 4.8.2 of the RFP Rules as part of the Bidder Qualifications, an applicant may propose modifications to the Bid Assurance LOC form that are non-substantive or clarifying in nature. The applicant proposing modifications to the Bid Assurance LOC form must provide an electronic copy in MS Word with all proposed modifications clearly marked and submit such document as directed in Section 6.1.2. All proposed modifications are due by noon on the Bidder Qualifications Due Date. The acceptability of such proposed modifications will be at PPL Electric’s sole discretion, and such acceptability will be communicated to the applicant no later than forty-eight hours before the Cure Deficiency Deadline. A list of all acceptable modifications to the Bid Assurance LOC form will be posted to PPL Electric’s RFP Website or the Proposal Submission Website no later than seven (7) business days before the Bid Proposal Due Date.

Yes. Pursuant to Section 4.3 of the RFP Rules, an applicant and PPL Electric are required to execute the Confidentiality Agreement (Appendix 3). Once the Confidentiality Agreement is received from the RFP Bidder during Bidder Qualification, PPL Electric will complete the execution of the agreement and send a copy to the RFP Bidder by email on the Qualified Bidders Notified Date or earlier upon request.

No, the Confidentiality Agreement is a standard document that must be executed in its current form and without modifications by each RFP Bidder as a condition of its participation in the RFP.

At this time, use of (i) a manually signed signature or (ii) a digital signature via DocuSign, Adobe Sign, or Infocert is approved for use by PPL Electric. Once the applicable documents have been executed, you will be required to upload a scan of the executed document online; no hardcopy originals are required under the RFP process.

There are two load caps in the DS solicitations as specified in Section 2.3.2 of the RFP Rules. There is an 85% solicitation load cap based on tranches in each solicitation. Also, there is a 50% aggregate load cap, applicable to Residential and Small C&I products, based on percent of default service load of a Customer Group an RFP Bidder can serve at any given point in time. The limit on tranches bid in any given solicitation will take into account percentage of load associated with tranches won under prior Full Requirements RFPs under the current or prior DSP. The number of load caps will be provided as an attachment to your notification of qualification by the RFP Manager.

Yes, it is possible.   First, the bid evaluation process follows the Section 7.4.6 of the RFP Rules, “The Bid Proposal Evaluation Team will, for each Product, consider all combinations of Bid(s) (across RFP Bidders) whose sum of Total Tranches Supplied is equal to the Available Tranches for that product in that solicitation. … For each combination, the Bid Proposal Evaluation Team will calculate the Combination Average Price (“CAP”) equal to the average Price (U.S. $/MWh) of the Bids in the combination weighted by their corresponding Total Tranches Supplied. The winning Bid(s) will be the Bid(s) contained in the combination with the lowest CAP. An RFP Bidder that is awarded tranches shall receive the Price (U.S. $/MWh) corresponding to the winning Bid as stated in its Bid Proposal Spreadsheet under the Bid Information section.   Since each bidding price corresponds to a total number of tranches and not a single tranche, it is possible that a non-awarded price bid is lower than the CAP. Please see the following example:

In this example, the winning combination is when Bidder A supplies 1 tranche and Bidder B supplies 2 tranches, and the CAP is $15.33/MWh. Even though Bidder A’s bid for two tranches is $15.00/MWh, lower than the CAP $15.33/MWh, it would not be included in the winning combination.

The Secretarial Letter and the summary of procurement results are posted to the RFP Results page of the RFP section of the RFP website. The list of winning bidders for the RFP is not publicly available.

The PUC may either accept or reject all of the Bid Proposals presented for a Product in its entirety. If the PUC does not act within one (1) business day, the winning Bids are deemed to be approved. Please see Section 7.5 of the RFP Process and Rules for more information.

Please refer to the calendar page of the RFP for when RFP Bidders are notified about their status as a qualified bidder. The online Bid Assurance Collateral and SMA form will be accessible after the Notifications of Qualification have been issued to qualified bidders.

Historically, the RFP Manager has provided notification to RFP Bidders on whether they have Bids that will be provided to the Commission as winning Bids prior to 4PM on the Bid Proposal Due Date.  However, this is a generalization. Bidders will be notified by the close of business (6PM EPT) on the Bid Proposal Due Date if they have Bids that will be provided to the Commission as winning Bids.

The “Price (US$/MWh)” column of the Bid Proposal Spreadsheet indicates the RFP Bidder’s price quote corresponding to the number of the Total Tranches Supplied in that row. An example is provided below for illustrative purposes only.

Bidder ABC has submitted a complete Bid Proposal Spreadsheet for Residential – 12 Month Product. Bidder ABC has bid for a Total of One (1) Tranche Supplied at US$40/MWh, a Total of Two (2) Tranches Supplied at US$45/MWh, a Total of Three (3) Tranches Supplied at US$50/MWh, a Total of Four (4) Tranches Supplied at US$55/MWh, and a Total of Five (5) Tranches Supplied at US$60/MWh. Bidder ABC has marked an “X” for Six (6) Total Tranches Supplied to Eight (8) Total Tranches Supplied to indicate that they do not wish to bid on more than Five (5) Total Tranches Supplied.

CASE 1: Bidder ABC is awarded Two (2) Total Tranches Supplied. If Bidder ABC is awarded Two (2) Total Tranches Supplied for the Residential – 12 Month Product, Bidder ABC would be required to provide full requirements service to serve 5% (i.e., 2.5% * 2 Tranches) of Total Residential Default Service Load. Bidder ABC will be paid US$45 per MWh for each MWh of the hourly loss derated load associated with the supply.

CASE 2: Bidder ABC is awarded Four (4) Total Tranches Supplied. If Bidder ABC is awarded Four (4) Total Tranches Supplied for the Residential – 12 Month Product, Bidder ABC would be required to provide full requirements service to serve 10% (i.e., 2.5% * 4 Tranches) of Total Residential Default Service Load. Bidder ABC will be paid US$55 per MWh for each MWh of the hourly loss derated load associated with the supply.

If you wish to enter a price offer for 4 Total Tranches Supplied, you must also enter bids for 1, 2, and 3 Total Tranches Supplied. However, there are no restrictions on the price offers that you enter into the Bid Proposal Spreadsheet. If you bid on 4 Total Tranches Supplied, your bids for one, two or three tranches could be higher or lower than your bid for 4 tranches.

There is no process to withdraw a Bid Proposal Spreadsheet after submission. As set forth in Section 4.6.1 of the RFP Rules, when an RFP Bidder submits a signed Binding Bid Agreement, the RFP Bidder certifies that it will be bound by the price quotes entered on any Bid Proposal Spreadsheet(s) submitted by the RFP Bidder. Please see Rules-FAQ-2 for further details on the submission of multiple Bid Proposal Spreadsheets for a product.

As set forth in Section 7.3.5 of the RFP Rules, if a Bid Proposal Spreadsheet is submitted more than once for a product, only the last submitted Bid Proposal Spreadsheet for such product will be evaluated and the earlier submissions of the Bid Proposal Spreadsheet(s) for such product will be considered void. For avoidance of doubt, all earlier submissions will be considered void regardless of whether the last submitted Bid Proposal Spreadsheet is complete. If the last submitted Bid Proposal Spreadsheet is incomplete, then such Bid Proposal Spreadsheet shall be eliminated from consideration. In this case, none of the submitted Bid Proposal Spreadsheets will be considered.

Yes, the RFPs are sealed bid RFPs.