Public procurement notice: Prior Information Notice Without Call For Competition
Published: 2016-05-06
Buyer: Oxford City Council
Country: UK
Region: Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire
Contract type: Supplies
CPV classification: 34000000
Estimated value: 130000 GBP

Technical requirements: Background The primary purpose of this PIN is to inform the market of prospective opportunities in connection with trials of on-street residential charging technologies in Oxford. Oxford has a higher than average percentage (28 %) of its households living in terraced properties, a high proportion of which do not have access to off-street parking. This makes charging of an electric vehicle very challenging for around 16 000 households in the city. The Office for Low Emission Vehicles have awarded Oxford City Council and Oxfordshire County Council 800 000 GBP capital and 16 000 GBP revenue funding to deliver a project to address the on-street charging challenge. This project will procure and test several on-street charging technologies that address this challenge through a pilot of around 30 installations. The performance of each technology will be evaluated and this analysis will inform a second phase to roll out a total of 100 installations around the city. The Councils are seeking match funding from prospective suppliers to support revenue requirements including communications, and evaluation and research elements. Scope This project seeks to provide a solution or solutions to the issue of ULEV charging for residents unable to install a home charger due to a lack of private off street parking. Solutions therefore must provide the opportunity for residents to charge their car at or near to their home. During the trial up to 6 different solutions will be trialled at total of 30 locations over 12 months. Charging solutions will be installed where off street charging is not available to residents. This will apply in both the trial and expansion phases. The trials will be technology neutral — open to all potential solutions which meet selection criteria, whether high or low technology. A non-exhaustive list of potential solutions which have been considered includes; — Pavement cable channels — Smart lampposts — Pop-up charging bollards The listed technologies are for example only; we will not exclude other alternatives which meet our selection criteria including the need for solutions to provide charging at or near the resident's home. Remote ‘rapid charging hubs’ or other solutions which do not allow residents to charge at or near their home are outside of the scope of the project and will be excluded. Solutions which do not provide value for money for users will be excluded; Pence per mile costs should be reasonably comparable to that achieved when charging an electric vehicle with a home charger. Evaluation of trial solutions will include both qualitative data on user perceptions and preferences, and quantitative data on charging, equipment reliability, value for money and resource input required. The evaluation data will be used to inform the second procurement which will select the most appropriate solution or solutions to be expanded across the city at up to 100 locations. Charging solutions in both trial and expansion stages will be installed in residential areas within the administrative boundary of Oxford City Council. Approach Oxford City Council and Oxfordshire County Council are currently developing the delivery model and procurement options for the use of the government funding, in order to trial a range of technology solutions for the on-street charging issue, and select a suitable option or options to be expanded across the city. Given the early stage of the process several procurement options for the trial stage are under consideration, including, but not limited to: (a) Seeking individual hardware suppliers to provide technology solutions, and a single network supplier to run the trial infrastructure for all hardware types. (b) Seeking consortia to provide hardware and network solutions for different technical solutions during the trial. The Councils propose to support research and other revenue elements of the scheme by investigating the opportunity to leverage revenue contributions from suppliers. The Councils invite organisations to express an interest in this prospective procurement. We propose to hold a suppliers day workshop/workshops to discuss strategies for procurement with prospective suppliers on 31.5.2016. When expressing an interest, please do so in writing under the reference ‘Go Ultra Low Oxford’ to Oxford City Council by 17.5.2016, providing: — Full details of your primary contact (full address, contact phone number, email contact) — Registered and trading name (if different) of your organisation — A short description (up to half an A4 page) of your business activity Please return this to Elizabeth Bohun ebohun@oxford.gov.uk