Disappointing Turn at Council Meeting

There was a lot of energy talk at Tuesday’s Glendale City Council meeting with discussions not only on the companies that will help the City move forward to reduce its carbon footprint but how the process of outreach and bids may need to change for the City to attract companies in this very competitive field.

In March, the Council instructed staff to identify cleaner alternatives for the repowering of the Grayson Power Plant. It instructed Glendale Water and Power (GWP) staff to prepare a Request for Proposal (RFP) for up to 50 megawatts of reliable and dispatchable Distributed Energy Resources.

GWP issued the RFP with a deadline of Sept. 30 and received 24 Notices of Intent; however, of those only two qualified proposals were received and those two companies had a history with the City.

The question then became why out of 24 Notices of Intent that were received only two were left standing? The City had done a lot of outreach including posting on the websites of the City’s RFP, GWP and Grayson Repowering. Emails were sent out to 282 contacts at 170 companies. The RFP was distributed to Southern California Public Power Authority, California Municipal Utilities Association, American Public Power Association and California Energy Storage – and yet…

“The word was certainly out there that Glendale was coming to the plate,” said Ted Flanigan, president of EcoMotion.

Ultimately it was four companies that went beyond Intent and were received and evaluated by the City’s team. Two were left to present to the Council on Tuesday.

Flanigan’s company was contracted by the City in August to help guide the RFP proposal team. EcoMotion and City staff met weekly to go over the process. Flanigan said he was asked to reach out to the companies that sent in a Notice of Intent and inquire why they did not go to the next step of sending in a proposal. He received responses from 14 out of the 24; their reasons varied from the lack of sites for solar and exclusion of municipal sites for solar and the City’s requirement for a bond, which would cost the company funds just to make a proposal and is difficult for some newer companies to acquire.

Public comments on this subject were pretty consistent. Disappointment in the Council was the most commonly heard comment. Those who shared their opinions during public comment stated this process had taken a long time and pointed out that when it comes to combating climate change time is of the essence. And they were also disappointed that out of all the companies it came down to two that the City was now looking at.

One speaker said when dealing with rapid technology, like that of energy companies, it’s much different from the way RFPs used to be done.

The Council had a discussion on what its RFP policy issues were and how it could move forward on creating new and more receptive RFPs for this type of industry. Though councilmembers briefly considered issuing a new RFP for this project they realized this would cause issues with the companies that made the proposals in good faith with the existing RFP. It would also add even more time to something that had already taken so long.

Flanigan said he had spoken with a colleague who had looked at over 40 RFPs and none had the extensive requirements as did Glendale.

“This is a hot industry and there is a lot of competition,” he said. “The vendors have the luxury of where they can propose.”

One of the speakers used the term “sabotage” when speaking of the RFP process in the City. Councilmember Ara Najarian said he read the RFP and felt it was broad and flexible.

Flanigan agreed with that assessment – to a point – but added that once possible companies drilled down and got into the City’s requirements there were a number of factors that would be difficult to meet.

Najarian did not like the term “sabotage” and said there wasn’t a problem with the City but a problem with the industry itself.

“They were not ready to commit to a deal we were offering them,” he said.

Councilmember Dan Brotman disagreed with Najarian.

“It is us, it’s not the industry,” he countered.

Brotman added that he too did not like the term “sabotage” because it implied ill intent but the industry seemed to be working well in other cities so maybe it was time for the Council to look at its RFP process.

“We only got four submissions out of 24,” Brotman pointed out.         

The discussion ended with Council having staff vet the two companies that had gone through the process for this project but also instructed staff members to review the RFP process for future projects.