The DOE Orange Button collaboration group has offered to work with any school interested in modernizing their procurement and contract administration by transitioning to digital for reducing project costs and enabling innovation, and to work with contractors and developers to learn about and leverage the efficiency of digital for easier access to surety credit.
School districts interact with various stakeholders in the procurement and administration of construction projects and are also subject to regulatory reporting and compliance. IT systems will often include the district accounting and administration, state and federal regulatory as well as various third party consultants that act as school representatives.
Streaming the processing and administration of project data not only saves schools districts directly, there are also savings for the contractors and supply chain that can result in lower contract costs.
Savings can also be realized with more effective risk management with predicative analytics to mitigate potential contract defaults.
School districts that are interested in participating simply offer to host Concept Proposals and respondents submit concept proposals following the Concept Proposal Bid Response Format.
School district engagement will result in viable concept energy proposals that can help reduce energy costs while providing resiliency, and possibly used to secure state or federal funding if the school district was interested in pursuing.
Steps for Participation
School District expresses interest in participating as a host for concept proposals, and as a stakeholder in the construction digital ecosystem. Other than being digital with data interoperability there are no changes to systems, process or administration of projects.
School District meets with prospective responders to collaborate on the development of concept proposals.
School District engages their customary procurement system providers and facilities team to explore how the district procurement system can transition to and leverage data interoperability in the procurement process.
School District engages their customary contract management system provider and facilities team to explore how the district procurement system can transition to and leverage data interoperability in the contract administration process.
School District accepts concept proposals for review and evaluation.
Next steps are determined, including possibly looking for grant funds to cover some or all of the project costs.
Grant Requests
There are a number of federal and state grant opportunities that might provide some or all of funding required.
The concept proposal could be utilized for a grant proposal.
School Districts Receive Data From
- Utility
- Authority Having Jurisdiction – Permit data
- Contractors
- Contractors project software
- Contractors surety bond
- Contractors insurance
- Monthly Construction Progress Payment
- Solar System Monthly Operating Report
School Districts Send Data To
- Procurement websites
- Utility
- Authority Having Jurisdiction (AHJ) – Permit data
- Contractors
- Contractors project software
- Internal accounting and other internal units
- State reporting
- Federal reporting
- Contractors surety
Data Sets Utilized
- OBF Application and loan data set
- PG&E SGIP Incentive Program
- Permit Data Set – SolarApp option
- Solar contractor company profile data set
- Construction contract data set
- Project component data set
- Surety bond data set – used for both utility payment bond and solar contractor P&P bonds.
- Insurance policy
- Monthly Construction Progress Payment
- Solar System Monthly Operating Report
