Public procurement notice: Voluntary Ex Ante Transparency Notice
Published: 2021-05-12
Buyer: Ørsted Wind Power A/S
Country: DK
Contract type: Services
Procedure: Negotiated without a prior call for competition
CPV classification: 72212150
Estimated value: 1500000 EUR
Award criteria: The most economic tender

Technical requirements: The Ørsted requirements to the IT security and services needed in relation to Service Level Agreements on the Industrial Control Systems (ICS) for Offshore wind farms is not a standard market delivery, as systems are proprietary and therefore serviced by the supplier delivering the systems. The existing supplier of the ICS is the only one who can meet these requirements due to intellectual property rights. Switiching technology or Service Method for the Industrial control system poses a significant threat to the stability of the Asset.
An entire wind farm' ICS solution consists of a central ICS server, connected to peripheral controllers and terminal units. On the controller and unit side, there is direct connection to turbines and transmission equipment to manage the power production. The upgrade of Central ICS solution is consisting of new hardware and configurations (servers, gateways etc.), as well as upgrades of the central software. There is a strong dependency between the central software, hardware and the peripheral technical operation of the turbines and transmissions of the ICS. It is not technically possible to switch the provider of the Central ICS solution (software and hardware), without having to change the entire ICS solution, including peripheral controllers and units, for the entire wind farm. On Orsted's operated wind farms, the software in the controllers and the units are supplier proprietary solutions, specifically built to operate with a central ICS solution from the same provider; meaning, that the intellectual property rights are owned exclusively by the Supplier of the ICS system. Thus, any third party supplier will not be able to upgrade the ICS system without interfacing with the Supplier who owns the ICS solution. The only way to change contractor, will therefore be to tender for a completely new ICS for the whole of each wind farm. Orsted Wind Power A/S has made a calculation of whether it would be commercially attractive to implement a new upgraded ICS solution. A very conservative estimate of the costs associated with the implementation of a new upgraded ICS solution on a wind farm (including lost downtime revenue) compared o upgrading the existing ICS solution is more than a factor 10. This estimate is not counting in the significant higher amount of resources needed for a new implementation as well as risks inherent to the change of configuration. Therefore, Orsted Wind Power A/S has within its discretion to decide how to fix the issue at hand, opted to upgrade instead of to replace the ICS system. It is therefore the contracting entity' intent to award the contract to the ICS supplier without prior publication of a contract notice in accordance with article 50, letter c), ii-iii).
Training requrements for proprietary Industrial control systems to be conducted to Orsted employees in order to increase Orsted saviness on how to correctly operate the supplier Proprietary System
The main rule is that any purchase for our wind parks exceeding the EU thresholds shall be tendered for in accordance with the rules in the Utility Directive. However, certain exemptions apply to the main rule. Legal has identified the exemption in article 50, letter c) no ii-iii) as the one that might be applicable to the purchase of ICS upgrades (HW and SE). According to this exemption ‘Contracting entities may use a negotiated procedure without prior call for competition in the following cases: c) where the works, supplies or services can be supplied only by a particular economic operator for any of the following reasons:
(i) the aim of the procurement is the creation or acquisition of a unique work of art or artistic performance;


Winner: Siemens A/S
Award value: 1500000