North American SynchroPhasor Initiative (NASPI). The Department of Energys, National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) is seeking interest from companies to write a specification for NASPInet, a network composed of Phasor Gateways, a Data Bus and a set of common services. The vision of the North American SynchroPhasor Initiative (NASPI) is to improve power system reliability and efficiency through wide-area measurement, monitoring and control. This is a Sources Sought notice. This is a market research tool being used to determine the interest of qualified small and large business sources. NETL IS ESPECIALLY INTERESTED IN RECEIVING INPUT FROM SMALL BUSINESSES WHO CAN PROVIDE THE TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS. Small business sources must be certified by the Small Business Administration (SBA) relative to NAICS classification 541330 Engineering Services. Small Business Size Standard is $4.5M. The information provided in response to this notice will be used to finalize the acquisition strategy for this requirement. This notice does not bind the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) to any agreement written or implied. There is no solicitation available at this time. Requests for a solicitation will not receive a response. In order to protect the procurement integrity of any future procurement, if any, that may arise from this notice, information regarding the technical point of contact will not be given. The Government does not intend to award a contract on the basis of this market survey. All interested parties will be required to respond to any resultant solicitation separately from their response to this sources sought notice. The Government will not reimburse respondents for any cost associated with submission of the information being requested or reimburse expenses incurred to interested parties for responses to this notice. Any information submitted is strictly voluntary. COMPANY PROPRIETARY INFORMATION SHALL NOT BE SUBMITTED. BACKGROUND: NASPIs mission is to create a robust, widely available and secure synchronized data (Synchrophasor) measurement infrastructure for the interconnected North American electric power system with associated analysis, monitoring tools for better planning and operation, and with improved reliability. NASPIs ultimate objective is to de-centralize, expand, and standardize the current Synchrophasor infrastructure through the introduction of a NASPI network (NASPInet) that will be composed of Phasor Gateways, a Data Bus, and a set of common Services. The NASPI data measurement infrastructure currently involves a number of devices, including, among others, Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) and Phasor Data Concentrators (PDCs). PMUs are the source of synchronized phasor data. They are located in the field at a utility substation, receiving station, or generating station. They may be a stand-alone piece of equipment or a function embedded within another type of equipment, such as a microprocessor-based relay or a Disturbance Fault Recorder. All PMUs require a highly accurate clock signal for referencing, a sampling/measurement front end, and some sort of communication link to output synchrophasor data. Phasor measurement data is typically transmitted continually from a PMU to a PDC. PDCs are generally located in the utility office environment, although they could physically be located in the field. PDCs function as an aggregation point for data from one or more PMUs that is streamed in via communication links to the field. Some local storage may be present along with an administrator interface and possibly some visualization tools. Todays PDCs were not designed to support the scalability and flexibility required to meet NASPIs mission. Data retrieval and handling devices are installed by North American utilities within their own company guidelines and infrastructure. Data from these devices is currently sent to centralized data gathering locations, e.g. Tennessee Valley Authority, Bonneville Power Administration, where data is then made available for authorized distribution as required. Phasor Gateways will be a utilitys portal through which Synchophasor data will be published and subscribed. A Phasor Gateway may handle data directly from a PMU, but most likely will send and receive data from one or more PDCs. The Data Bus will transport data from one Phasor Gateway to another. The Data Bus is one logical entity, but it will be comprised of a large number of components throughout the NASPInet, much like the Internet has network-level routers deployed everywhere the Internet is accessible. TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS: Technical requirements for the development of the specification for NASPInet effort are delineated as follows: The Phasor Gateway specification shall address: scalability, fault tolerance, availability, industry-standard protocol support, vendor interoperability, traffic flow management, failure mode & event notification, data & task logging, naming conventions, access control, cyber security, multi-cast capability, open API feature, support and training. The NASPInet Data Bus specification shall address: data bus access, forwarding latency, throughput, cyber security, traffic prioritization, network utilization, flexibility and heterogeneity, quality of service, temporal synchronicity, instrumentation, anomaly resilience. The NASPInet system-level behavior shall address: naming conventions, protocols, service classes, quality of service, cyber security, emergency modes, trust management, open standards and vendor diversity, instrumentation, data standards and formats, policy-based control, phased implementation approach. HOW TO RESPOND TO THE SOURCES SOUGHT NOTICE: Please submit comments no later than February 22, 2008. Preferred media is electronic copies in Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat. Preferred method of submission is via email to
contact@example.gov. Telephone responses and inquiries will not be accepted. Potential sources that possess capabilities to perform the aforementioned technical requirement are encouraged to respond to this sources sought notice and provide the following information: 1) Statement of Interest to include company name, address, phone number, DUNS number, and identify the company as one or more of the following: 1) small business; 2) 8(a) business; 3) HUBZone small business; 4) small disadvantaged business; 5) woman-owned small business; 6) service disabled veteran owned small business, or 7) large business. The statement of interest shall not be more than one (1) page on a 8.5 X 11 paper with 1 inch margins and 12 point font. 2) Capabilities Statement that addresses the capabilities and experience of the organization and key personnel as well as the contractors ability to meet similar technical requirements and deal with similar technologies. The capability statement shall be not more than ten (10) pages on 8.5 x 11 paper, with 1 inch margins and a 12 point.
