Regarding your questions on how the bidding process generates reliable pricing data:

The Requestors are asking Respondents to submit their best pricing to install weatherization measures to the program's standards and at a profitability level that will allow them to operate successfully in the program. Bids will be compared across Respondents to set the pricing based on this competitive process. The process is designed to provide an opportunity to all Respondents to have their bid considered.

In respsonse to the question about IIC's who are not selected to receive work allocations, if they still will be required to maintain insurance, background checks, and other program required costs.

Yes, IICs will need to continue to meet all aspects of the program participation agreements to remain active and participate. Any contractor who is not selected to receive work allocations are welcome to continue working in the program under the Direct Wx path and Customer referrals (ECR/PCR/Customer Request). Customer Acquisition fees will be paid for all eligible projects (Direct Weatherization/ECR/PCR).

Respondents are expected to factor in all elements of their costs to provide the requested services, including overhead, insurance, and other ongoing costs to deliver a competitive bid for the Wx measures. This is a competitive process, and not all IICs will recieve allocations moving forward. It will be up to each business to decide if they can compete in the market using self-driven pathways available.

All Respondents are being asked to bid under the same structure which defines a process fair to all. This is a competitive process and will result in the most competitive IIC businesses being selected to receive work allocation. The PAs recognize that as a result of this RFQ, the right -sizing of IIC capacity to current (and likely near-term future) market demand will likely result in fewer IIC firms receiving work allocations. This will also lead to higher utilization and healthier businesses for those IICs most able to deliver work at a competitive price. Establishing a competitive, market-based approach to determine pricing doesn't represent collusion, it is a reflection of a standard approach to procuring services in any marketplace, including how the Program Administrators most commonly select vendors in this and other programs.

The Program Administrators believe that both the HPC model and the IIC model provide value for customers and are committed to maintaining both models. HPC work volume is a function of the amount of demand that individual HPCs are able to generate, an opportunity that will remain open to all IICs participating in the program as a result of the RFQ. The purpose of the RFQ is to determine market-based pricing for weatherization services and IICs and HPCs will continue to receive the same pricing for weatherization services, and an acqusition fee for self-driven work.

Consistent with the past RFQ process, the overall results will be shared once complete, with similar levels of overall data analysis on the process. No individual bids, or confidential information will be shared publicly. Accepted bids submitted by the marketplace of contractors installing weatherization work will determine a competitive price for the measures. The price is determined not by ALL contractors' bids but by a subset of contractors able to fulfill the install demand of the program at competitive a price.

Contractor expected capacity will be determined by each contractor on their own. Each IIC will use the capacity and zone template to submit what they believe they can reasonably deliver. The Requestors will also consider historical throughput when reviewing contractor submitted capacity.

Given there is uncertainty in the market around potential future tarriff impacts all Respondents should develop their bids based on current price drivers. Should proposed or implemented tarriffs significantly impact future underlying costs components of weatherization work before the next RFQ cycle, the PAs may address that impact off cycle similar to the post COVID actions PAs took on pricing.

Bids will be accepted from the HPC Respondents and all IIC respondents awarded Work Allocations in at least 1 zone as a result of this RFQ. Once the Requestor has established the set of acceptable bids, as described above, all bid submissions, per individual measure, will be averaged (by taking the mean) to set that measure’s price. Both IIC and HPC bids will be evaluated for outliers and any unreasonable bids will not be accepted, and excluded from the price setting process. The Requestors will evaluate bids using Standard Deviation calculations, as well as other statistical analysis to asses outliers. Any outlier bids will be flagged and Respondents will have the opportunity to correct errors and omissions.

Martha's Vinyard is not a territory served by Eversource or National Grid. For the purposes of this RFQ, Zone 12 is specific to the island of Nantucket. The map will be updated to reflect this change. Thank you for making us aware of this error.

Thank you for raising this point. The timely response to LV calls/emails is a component of the scoring methodology that has remained unchanged over the last 5 years. It will be scored consistent with past years and is specific to invoice processing. Any time sensitive communications LVs require from an IIC will include both an email and a phone call, they will be clearly marked as 'Urgent'.

Respondents are expected to make good faith bids that represent their companies' ability to deliver the forecasted work, in the specific territories they bid on. Any selected IIC who cannot deliver in a certain territory they bid on would lose allocations in that territory.

As a reminder, allocations are not guaranteed and future work is dependent on market demand.

Expected capacity will not influence rankings. PAs will continue to invite lowest bidding contractors to receive allocations until aggregated capacity meets the demand requirements of each zone.

The IIC related objectives stated in the recent RFQ informational calls relayed that one goal of the new RFQ design is to better align the capacity of IICs receiving work allocations from the program with current residential weatherization market opportunity.

All contractors are hurt when the number of available jobs compared to the number of contractors leads to smaller individual work allocations and resulting reduced utilization rates. We acknowledge that IICs whose bids lead to their no longer receiving work allocations from the program will be impacted by that loss of allocated work. Conversely those whose bids lead to their being included in the pool of IICs receiving work allocations on a go-forward basis will receive more sustainable and predictable work from the program and will receive job allocations solely on the basis of traditional criteria related to work quality, customer satisfaction, and availability.

The Program Administrators view a situation where the program procures a subset of contractors with delivery capacity that is matched to the expected project volume as a reasonable result where the participating contractors are in a position to be more fully utilized which is a healthier dynamic for the market than the status quo, where many contractors have provided feedback that they are underutilized.

In this model, customers will ultimately benefit from the cost control and stability that comes from higher utilization rates for a more sustainable, healthier pool of IIC businesses that are allocated work based on quality, customer satisfaction and availability.

Yes, removing bids for HPC acquisition fees was an intentional RFQ design decision.

The PAs received clear and consistent feedback from the HPC community heading into the RFQ process that they felt that the impact of each HPC’s relative bid position on individual HPC customer acquisition fees was too large, and that a narrower distribution of those fees was most fair.

In order to produce effective bids a procurement process must have a competitive element and for HPC acquisition fees the competitive element is the relative bid position and resulting higher or lower fee amount. In being responsive to the feedback to constrain the distribution of fees, the PAs understood that doing so would substantially reduce the incentive for HPCs to bid competitively on acquisition fees. New bids with a minimized competitive element was, in the PAs’ view, a path to unsustainably high acquisition fees that program budgets can’t support. In this environment, the PAs would likely be obligated to artificially limit the supportable amount of HPC work. In the PAs’ view, it is better to maintain acquisition fees closer to current levels (which were established on the basis of bid received during the last RFQ process) and allow HPCs to make their own decisions around how to manage customer acquisition costs and investment in light of a known acquisition fee revenue opportunity.

The intent of this RFQ (or any competitive procurement) process isn’t to establish price levels that are representative of average or overall industry cost structure. It is to establish the lowest price that can be achieved while allowing contractors to deliver services at a quality level that is consistent with program standards and allows participating contractors to earn a sufficient margin to continue to deliver these important services to our customers.

Respondents are expected to factor in all elements of their cost structure related to installation of Weatherization Measures required to provide the requested services, including overhead, insurance, and any other costs necessary to deliver weatherization services at existing program quality standards. The Program Administrators also anticipate that contractor bids will include whatever margin requirements each contractor has, given their cost structure, in order for the residential weatherization program to remain a viable business opportunity for that contractor.

The capacity requested is defined as the number of jobs an IIC expects to be able to complete in the next 12 months. IICs should review their historical capacity for Wx work, how busy their workers were, and how many jobs they feel they can reasonably handle. It is recommended that IICs review their past results to help establish a baseline, and consider factors such as utilization, downtime, etc.

For example, if an IIC completed 80 jobs in the last 12 months, and their crews were busy handling that workload, a bid of 80 jobs as their capacity value would be reasonable. However, if the IIC was not busy, and estimates they could have managed 100 Wx jobs if the work had been allocated to them, they may choose to bid a higher capacity value.

The number of IICs is not something that is predetermined but will be established based on the delivery capacity of the IICs who submit the most competitive bids during this RFQ. The contractors with the most competitive bids, per zone, will be selected for Work Allocation for the next 12 months. IIC respondents will be added to the allocation pool until Lead Vendor expected volume has been satisfied by the IICs bid capacity for each zone.

The Program Administrators have, and maintain, stringent work quality requirements for all participating contractors in the program. These requirements, we believe, are a primary driver of the consistently strong work quality and customer satisfaction scores that we continue to observe in the program. All RFQ respondents should submit bids that are reflective of all costs they anticipate needing to incur in order to maintain their adherence to current program quality standards.

Additionally, as referenced in RFQ materials and prior answers, work quality, customer satisfaction and timeline of service metrics will, on a go forward basis, be the only determinants of work allocations among selected bidders. The PAs believe that this is aligned with consistent feedback received from the IIC community since the last RFQ process and will provide an ongoing incentive for contractors to maintain and deliver quality services to customers.

The Program Administrators do not believe that asking program service providers to bid competitively on the cost of providing these services as ‘cheaping out’ on customers – rather, and consistent with our general procurement philosophy and approach, it represents a fulfilment of our obligation to those customers to ensure that we are receiving the best possible price for services that all of these customers ultimately pay for.

The Program Administrators understand the nature of a competitive process, and that it can result in less competitive firms no longer working in the program. This is no different than how we procure other services in the programs, including for the lead vendors who manage IICs and HPCs, and for our multi-family and small business program vendors. By its nature procurement typically is a process that results in awarding the work to only one or a subset of winning bidders this program has been an anomaly in that respect. Unfortunately, the market for Weatherization services is not in a phase of exponential growth and with more IIC capacity than demand, requires changes to prevent even greater losses to the IIC network.

Through this RFQ process the most competitive firms in the network will have an opportunity to move forward with sustainable levels of allocated work. Self-driven pathways will remain for all IICs, including those who do not receive an allocation award.

The territory maps we're divided into only 12 zones, which results in some larger zones. Please note that IICs who are awarded allocation work will continue to have the ability to accept or reject work within the zones they bid on. Multiple IICs will be selected per zone to ensure consistent coverage for all zones.

IICs are encouraged to bid on all zones in which they regularly perform work, even if they do not service every town in that zone.

Given there is uncertainty in the market around potential future tariff impacts all Respondents should develop their bids based on current price drivers. Should proposed or implemented tariffs significantly impact future underlying costs components of weatherization work before the next RFQ cycle, the PAs may address that impact off cycle similar to the post COVID actions PAs took on pricing.

Yes, all participating IICs will remain on the contractor list and may receive work as a result of customer requests. In addition, they will be able to drive their own demand through Direct Wx and ECR/PCR pathways as well.

Through the contractor listening sessions and based upon market conditions of the previous years, it is clear that there is excess contractor capacity above and beyond current and near future projected demand. The RFQ responses on capacity will provide a more detailed view on overall capacity compared to projected work and will help to ensure there is enough contractor availability in all areas of the state.

Only Attachment 1, Attachment 2a, and Attachment 2b should be submitted with your bid.

Through analysis of contractor submitted abilities, we don’t believe we will have any issues completing any type of weatherization project. If there are projects that the selected contractors in a zone cannot complete, contractors outside of the allocation group for that zone may be utilized.

Please see response to Question titled "How many contractors will be in the allocation group..." above regarding allocation awards and self-driven demand options for IICs.

Please see response to Question titled “How many contractors will be in the allocation group…” above regarding allocation awards and self-driven demand options for IICs for additional details.

It is correct that the number of IIC contractors will be determined based on the individual IIC bids, and the projected capacity of those IICs that is needed to satisfy demand. It is anticipated that fewer IICs will be required to satisfy demand in certain areas that see lower volume, such as Western Mass (4 territories) compared to Eastern Mass (8 territories including islands) which will requiring more IICs to satisfy the higher demand of those areas.

Please see response to question titled “Do you believe the RFQ takes into account all necessary...”

Please see the response to the Question Titled "Do you believe the RFQ takes into account all necessary adjustment to pricing?..." above.