tacoma public utilities water request for...
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TACOMA PUBLIC UTILITIES – WATER
REQUEST FOR INFORMATION
ADVANCED METERING INFRASTRUCTURE
SPECIFICATION NO. WF17-0074F
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City of Tacoma Tacoma Public Utilities / Water Rates and Finance
REQUEST FOR INFORMATION – WF17-0074F ADVANCED METERING INFRASTRUCTURE
Submittal Deadline: 11:00 a.m., Pacific Time, Tuesday, March 14, 2017
Submittal Delivery: Sealed submittals will be received as follows:
By Carrier: City of Tacoma Procurement & Payables Division Tacoma Public Utilities 3628 S 35
th Street
Tacoma, WA 98409
In Person: City of Tacoma Procurement & Payables Division Tacoma Public Utilities Lobby Security Desk Administration Building North – Main Floor 3628 S 35
th Street
Tacoma, WA 98409
By Mail: City of Tacoma Procurement & Payables Division Tacoma Public Utilities PO Box 11007 Tacoma, WA 98411-0007
Note: This is a change in location for in-person deliveries.
Submittal Opening: Sealed submittals in response to a RFB will be opened by a Purchasing representative and read aloud during a public bid opening held in Conference Room M-1, located on
the main floor in the same building. Submittals in response to an RFI are recorded as received but are not typically opened and read aloud. After 1:00 p.m. the day of bid opening, the names of vendors submitting proposals are posted to the website for public viewing.
Solicitation Documents: An electronic copy of the complete solicitation documents may be viewed and obtained by accessing the City of Tacoma Purchasing website at www.TacomaPurchasing.org.
Register for the Bid Holders List to receive notices of addenda, questions and answers and related updates.
Click here to see a list of vendors registered for this solicitation.
Pre-Proposal Meeting: A pre-proposal meeting will not be held.
Project Scope: To gather information to refine water specific technology.
Paid Leave and Minimum Wage: Effective February 1, 2016, the City of Tacoma requires all employers to provide paid leave and minimum wages, as set forth in Title 18 of the Tacoma Municipal Code. For more information visit www.cityoftacoma.org/employmentstandards.
Additional Information: Requests for information regarding the specifications may be obtained by contacting Marie Holm, senior buyer by email to [email protected].
Protest Policy: City of Tacoma protest policy, located at www.tacomapurchasing.org, specifies procedures for protests submitted prior to and after submittal deadline.
Meeting sites are accessible to persons with disabilities. Reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities can be arranged with 48 hours advance notice by calling 253-502-8468.
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SPECIFICATION CONTENTS
This specification contains the following: Cover Sheet Request for Information page Submittal Checklist Section 1 – Introduction 1.01 – Purpose 1.02 – Point of Contact 1.03 - Submittal Contents Section 2 – Proprietary or Confidential Design Information Section 3 – Disclaimer
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SUBMITTAL CHECK LIST This checklist identifies the information to be included in your submittal. Submittals must be received by the City of Tacoma Procurement and Payables by the date and time specified in the Request for Information page.
The following items make up your submittal package:
One original, one copy of your complete submittal.
The information being requested in Section 1.03, Submittal Contents
DELIVERY OPTIONS TO THE
CITY OF TACOMA PROCUREMENT AND PAYABLES DIVISION
BY CARRIER:
Tacoma Public Utilities
3628 S. 35th Street, Tacoma, WA 98409
DELIVERY IN PERSON:
Tacoma Public Utilities Lobby Security Desk
Administration Building North – Main Floor
3628 S. 35th Street, Tacoma, WA 98409
DELIVERY BY MAIL:
City of Tacoma Procurement & Payables Division
Tacoma Public Utilities PO Box 11007, Tacoma, WA 98411-0007
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SECTION 1 – INTRODUCTION
Tacoma Water is part of Tacoma Public Utilities (TPU), a municipal utility provider of water, power, and rail services to the Greater Tacoma region south of Seattle in the Pacific Northwest. TPU is planning a system-wide deployment of advanced meters for its water and power utilities, with deployment of the meters targeted for 2020-2021 of nearly 103,000 water meters and 178,000 power meters. 79,000 of the water utility's meters provide service to accounts that also receive power service from TPU, and 65,000 of the water utility's meters provide service to accounts inside the City of Tacoma that receive service from TPU and from Tacoma's Environmental Services division, which provides wastewater, storm, and solid waste collection service. The same ERP/CIS (SAP ECC 6.0), billing platform and organization is used for these services throughout their respective service territories. The geographic distribution of these overlapping service territories is shown by the service area map below.
Tacoma Water has scheduled approximately 50,000 meters for replacement due to cumulative consumption and useful life, and has meters in its inventory of a variety of sizes and from various meter manufacturers (See meter inventory Appendix A).
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1.01 PURPOSE Tacoma Water intends to issue a Request for Proposals (RFP) in mid- to late-2017 for AMI technology including meters, communications modules, communications network devices and network management software. The purpose of this RFI is to gain information which could be used and would impact the water-specific technology requirements of the RFP, to include technology alternatives, as well as their cost, useful life, and capability information, including functionality and interoperability that can then inform the water technology specifications for a utility-wide AMI deployment. Because the actual deployment is 3 years away, there will likely be technology developments that occur between now and meter deployment that could impact the capabilities, useful lives, and cost of the technology. It is important that, through this RFI, such technology combinations can demonstrate their viability for a system-wide deployment in this environment. Tacoma Water encourages respondents to provide their five year technology roadmap for their AMI solution for water in the response to this RFI. The City of Tacoma including Tacoma Public Utilities (TPU) use SAP as its ERP and CIS platform. The vast majority of water meters are contained in outdoor meter boxes and vaults. Tacoma Water and Tacoma Power own extensive infrastructure to which AMI collectors and/or antennas could be mounted.
1.02 POINT OF CONTACT Any questions regarding this RFI should be directed to Marie Holm, Procurement and Payables Division via email at [email protected] or Marc Powell, Tacoma Water via email at [email protected]
1.03 SUBMITTAL CONTENTS Respondents are asked to provide the following information and list it in the order of sequence below.
1. Name of Firm a. Main office address b. Primary contact Name / telephone number / e-mail address c. Additional contacts for further technical inquires (name / telephone number / e-
mail address) d. Internet address
2. Please provide the information listed on the next pages as well as other additional information your company can provide about your AMI coverage capabilities. If you would like to provide a high level coverage plan showing how your solution would cover all of the electric and water meters in TPU’s service territory, Tacoma Water welcomes this additional information.
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RFI Area: Metering
1. Please provide an overview of your current water metering capability for the application seen in Appendix A.
2. Please provide an overview of the flow measuring capabilities for each of meters in Appendix A, i.e. positive displacement, ultrasonic, etc. and the number of devices deployed for each technology.
3. Please provide an overview of any additional meter sensing capabilities you currently have available today and the number of deployments where these capabilities are in operation (i.e. Pressure/Temp/PH/Chlorine/Leak).
4. Please provide an overview of how your endpoint detects tamper. 5. Please provide an overview of how your endpoint detects reverse flow or back flow. 6. Please provide an overview of your end-point roadmap that might include any additional
sensing capability (i.e. pressure, leak, temperature or water quality parameters). Please also include the timeline for bringing these capabilities to market if the capabilities don’t exist in the commercially released products
7. If additional sensing is planned, will the unit still reside in a Tacoma Water’s typical meter installation envelope (see Appendix B)? Will the lay length, width or height of the device prevent the endpoint from being deployed in a standard application by today’s standards? Please provide the cut/spec sheets of the meters you offer.
8. If additional sensing is planned, will that technology be able to be available with AMI communications networks from other vendors?
9. Please provide an overview of your endpoint connect/reconnect capability including the number of times the feature can be exercised over the life of the metering endpoint without impacting the meter’s life expectancy or battery life.
10. Does your solution use a secondary battery to support connect / reconnect? 11. Please provide an overview for the number of times and the data granularity a water
endpoint can be read over the course of a day without impact to the endpoint battery life expectancy.
12. Please provide an overview of the number of times firmware can be upgraded without an impact to the endpoint battery life expectancy.
13. Please provide an overview of your endpoints battery technology. Type of battery chemistry, expected performance over temperature and year by year degradation charts through the life expectancy or warranty period of the endpoint.
14. Please provide a year by year breakdown of your water endpoint battery warranty. Under what conditions would the warranty include reimbursement of TPU’s labor for replacement of the prematurely failed battery?
15. If the endpoint battery is replaceable, please provide an overview of how the battery is replaced, sealed, etc.
16. Should the battery be replaceable, will the battery replacement result in the need to recalibrate any sensing capability? For example, if the endpoint contains a pressure or temperature sensor, will the endpoint need recalibration?
17. How are the sensing endpoints calibrated?
18. How will future, more capable, sensing endpoints be calibrated or hold their calibration through the intended lifecycle?
19. Will the additional sensing capabilities reduce the meter or endpoint lifecycle? 20. What AMI communications network and MDMS vendors have you worked with in
commercially deployed implementations in the past 5 years? (Please do not include pilots or marketing relationships)
21. What are the environmental limitations of your meters/endpoints? Can they operate in extreme heat, extreme cold, submersion in water, aggressive soils? What technology has been incorporated to make the meters/endpoints withstand these conditions?
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22. Describe the connectors between meter and endpoint. Does it insure that miswiring, loss of connection in hostile (pit) environments is not an issue?
23. Does water or debris at top of meter pit prevent conveyance of endpoints signal? 24. Is a nonmetallic lid required for transmission through pit lids? 25. Is the meter serial number transmitted along with the reading?
RFI Area: AMI Network
1. Please provide an overview of your AMI network a. Type of network?
i. Mesh ii. Star iii. Point to point, etc.
b. Operating frequency c. Bandwidth capability d. Can your network be co-deployed with electric meters, and if so does this impact
the overall communications performance of the water endpoint? e. Please provide an overview of where your network is deployed commercially
(excluding pilots or trials) including the number of endpoints installed and the infrastructure required to support the deployment.
i. Number of endpoints ii. Number of repeaters/relays iii. Number of collectors/gateways/access points/base stations iv. Does the water meter rely on an electric endpoint to propagate the water
endpoint signal or does the water meter module directly participate in the AMI communications network?
v. What is the preferred mounting location of your network? f. Please provide at least 2 references that TPU can contact. For each reference,
provide an overview of additional or unique features the utility has implemented for water metering.
g. How is your network managed? i.e. how are water endpoints monitored for tamper, battery life, or other alarms?
h. What security capability is built into your network for water endpoints? i. Encryption? ii. Data integrity?
2. Is your network part of a managed services design (Software-As-A-Service)? 3. What specific water meter manufacturer and types does your network support? Please
include details for how your AMI network solution supports the compound water meters listed in Appendix A.
4. Is your network able to transport all data from meters with additional sensing capabilities (temp, pressure, etc.)?
RFI Area: System Monitoring
1. What, if any, capability does your current system have to support water distribution monitoring?
a. Pressure Monitoring b. Temperature Monitoring c. pH Monitoring d. Chlorine Monitoring
2. Can your AMI system support communications with other distribution assets via protocol exchangers such as a 4-20mA endpoint or serial device?
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3. Does your AMI support the use of RTU’s with the capability to support water distribution devices?
4. If your system has the capability to support water distribution hardware (Smart Water technologies, please provide an overview of your capability and what Smart Water technology is supported. Please provide any operational information available including screen shots of the application.
5. Do you offer Software-As-A-Service options for your water AMI solution? 6. Can the AMI System identify water usage on an account defined as off or inactive? 7. Can your solution transmit information on remaining battery life? 8. Please provide a list of distributed automation and /or monitoring and sensing
information that your platform has partnered with.
RFI Area: Interoperability
1. Should a contract with the utility and vendor end, will operability information on the endpoints be provided to the utility? Does TPU own the data that is collected? (describe any restrictions such)
2. Will codes and data fields be given to allow incorporation to third party software? 3. For the following categories, provide a list of all vendors with which you have partnered
on actual AMI deployments in the past 5 years, and which offer solutions that are compatible with your technology.
Our Firm Provides It Our Firm has
Partnered with These Vendors
Water meters
Water meter modules
Head-End
MDMS
Customer Dashboard
Automatic Disconnect – Water
Leak Detection
Water pressure, temperature, chlorine, and pH sensing
Other sensing/smart water capability (please specify)
Field Network
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SECTION 2 – PROPRIETARY OR CONFIDENTIAL DESIGN INFORMATION
Washington State Public Disclosure Act (RCW 42.56 et seq.) requires public agencies in Washington to promptly make public records available for inspection and copying unless they fall within the specified exemptions contained in the Act, or is otherwise privileged. Documents submitted under this Specification shall be considered public records and, with limited exceptions, will be made available for inspection and copying by the public. Information that is confidential or proprietary must be clearly marked. Further, an index must be provided indicating the affected page number(s) and location(s) of all such identified material. Information not included in said index will not be reviewed for confidentiality or as proprietary before release.
SECTION 3 – DISCLAIMER Please note this RFI is being issued to gather information only. While the intent of this RFI is to gather information and identify potential vendors, there is no guarantee that any specific information received would be included in any future solicitation. Each Respondent shall bear all expenses incurred by the preparation and presentation of its RFI response. TPU will therefore reject any claim made against them in this matter, regardless of the results of the subsequent processes, if any.
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Appendix A - Estimated Meter Count
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Appendix B - Current Meter Box Sizes