BID 15-11-071 EXHIBIT C

Exhibit C

Supplemental Questions

October 2, 2015

Use this document for your response preparation.

  • Return this exhibit in word format.
  • Keep all section headings and question numbers.
  • Keep responses brief and concise.
  • Keep an answer to any question to fewer than 50words.
  • Answer in terms of what information and features are provided to the OMU and consumers.

Responsibilities

  1. In Section 5.2.2 of the RFPOverview we included a list of the OMU responsibilities. Please indicate acceptance of each, and indicate any additions or modifications that you recommend.
  2. In Section 5.2.3 of the RFPOverview we included a list of the respondents’ responsibilities. Please indicate acceptance of each and indicate any additions or modifications that you recommend.

Bill-of-Material

  1. How are warranty claims handled for
  2. Products that you are the OEM (original equipment manufacturer)?
  3. A partner being the OEM?
  4. A merged product (i.e. A product that you manufacture a board or other assembly that is installed in another device, an example might be an AMI meter)?
  5. What security features are included in the bid? What are the options? Costs?
  6. How does the interval reportingeffect the network design? For example, what happens to the size, quantity, pricing and other for each of the items below if you change the reporting interval from 60 minutes to 15 minutes?
  1. Network Server?
  2. Database?
  3. Wide Area Network (WAN)?
  4. Local Area Network (LAN) size?
  1. Please indicate the country of manufacture of the key elements in the AMI system in Exhibit B (on sheet “Product”) and also summarize below:
  2. Collectors
  3. Repeaters
  4. AMI modules – electric
  5. AMI modules – water
  6. Electric meters
  7. Single-phase
  8. Polyphase
  9. Water meters

Installation and Operation

  1. When network is first installed, how long will it take for the network to form? To optimize?
  2. In an underground service area (no electric poles) with only decorative street lighting, what are the options for router/collector installations?
  3. Please provide a list of recommended best practices.
  4. What system health checks do you recommend each
  5. Day?
  6. Week?
  7. Month?
  8. Year?
  9. What regular maintenance do you recommend?
  10. Battery change-out in collectors. Others?
  11. Other
  12. What is your recommended server upgrade schedule?
  13. What is the process for server upgrade?
  14. Costs for AMI and related software?
  15. Other

Standards

  1. Are you involved in the WiSUN alliance?
  2. How would your solution evolve to meet interoperability standards?
  3. Do you have any product demonstrations? Plans?

Meters

  1. Please indicate what meter options are included in price (i.e. measurement level keys,soft switches, etc.).
  2. What options provide what information?
  3. Which options are required to meet OMU requirements?
  4. For the poly-phase meters, is the following data available by phase? Included in cost? What is cost (meter and software) if not included?
  5. Voltage sags/swells
  6. Blinks
  7. Outage
  8. Current
  9. For the poly-phase meters, is the following data available? Included in cost? What is cost (meter and software) if not included?
  10. PF
  11. kVARh
  12. kVAR
  13. kVAh
  14. kVA
  15. What information do you require for a meter order? Nameplate data, labels, coding, serial number format, etc.

Network Components

  1. What is your recommended maintenance for router/collector and other battery powered (primary or backup) network devices(question does not include water nodes)?
  2. What are the power requirements for your router/collector?
  3. What is the transmit power of the water module?
  4. Is the collector/router mountable on a street lamp?

Server and Application Software

  1. Please describe the physical (size) and other requirements for the AMI-MDM server and other related hardware. Also, include the environmental requirements for the proposed server. Provide for the initial and full implementation.
  2. Please describe what access you require to the AMI-MDM server. For initial implementation and ongoing operations.
  3. Will the OMU be notified before your staff accesses the server?
  4. What activities are generally performed?
  5. Do you create a log of who accessed and their activities done?
  6. What activities do you perform on the server on a regular basis?
  7. What support is included in your bid price for applications including
  1. Fault monitoring
  2. Recloser monitoring
  3. Conservation voltage reduction
  4. Integrated volt-VAR control
  1. Does the base system include leak detection and alarming for water meters? Additional cost?
  2. What impacts to the AMIserver is there if 15 minute consumption data is required from all single-phase and poly-phase meters?
  3. What impacts to the AMI database is there if 15 minute consumption data is required from all single-phase and poly-phase meters?
  4. What database administration will the OMU be required to do?
  5. What database administration do you staff do under the support agreement?
  6. For the proposed solution, please indicate which of the following systems you will interface with (please list vendor, protocols, and supported platform). Add additional line items to table as required.

System Interfaces

No. / System / Vendor(s) supported / Platform(s) supported / Protocols/ standards used
1. / Billing
2. / Distribution Automation
3. / GIS
4. / Home Automation
5. / Load Management
6. / Meter Data Management
7. / Outage Management
8. / SCADA
9. / Customer Portal
10. / Other
  1. Please describe your proposed interface to systems listed in Section 5.2.4 in the RFP Overview.Indicate whether the interface is real-time or batch updates.
  2. Clearly and concisely state any support requirements that you require from existing application providers to interface to your AMI solution (refer to diagram in Section 5.3.4 in the RFP.
  3. Clearly and concisely state any support requirements that you require from existing application providers to interface to your MDM solution (refer to diagram in Section 5.3.4 in the RFP.
  4. Please describe the interface with the AMI master and the MDM System.
  5. Will the MDM be able to support a real-time interface with OMU’s CIS?
  6. For the MDM explain your process for software updates, upgrades, and software support in general.
  7. For the MDM provide an architectural diagram of all required components to support the application to include: clients, application server(s), databases, etc.
  8. In the AMI-MDM system, will OMU be able to adjust the definition of an outage? This may be required to match the outage definition to the OMU SCADA/OMS.
  9. Please describe your approach to online bill payments for customers.
  10. Do you offer an application for street light control?
  11. If so, please provide budgetary pricing (software and hardware) for the application and products.
  12. Please provide a brief descriptionof operation and features for this application.
  13. What benefits might your street light control deliver to the OMU?

Annual Maintenance

  1. What support is offered in Year 1?
  2. Please provide additional detail on software maintenance and technical support fees (support and software agreements).
  3. Are all third party maintenance feesincluded?
  4. Server?
  5. Database?
  6. Other?
  7. What are the tech support fees?
  8. Are there optional levels of service?
  9. What are the software maintenance fees?
  10. Do the fees increase as meters, load control devices, water modules, or other devices are added? What is the per-unit fee?
  11. Is 24x7 service included?
  12. Do the fees vary with the type of data being retrieved from meter? I.e. is there a higher fee for 15-minute interval collection than hourly data collection?
  13. Are you conducting active monitoring of the server and the AMI network? What monitoring is done?

Network Performance

  1. Does the AMI-MDM software check to see that all interval data is obtained? If missing, does it automatically retrieve the missing data?
  2. If a router/collector is replaced or added, how long does it take for the meters to re-associate to the router/collector?
  3. If a router/collector fails, how long will it take the network to recognize and find an alternative path for the meters and other devices served?
  4. How long would a typical firmware upgrade take for a:
  5. Single-phase meter module?
  6. Water node?
  7. Poly-phase meter module?
  8. DA module?
  9. Load management module?
  10. What typical success rate (percentage of devices) is typically seen with a firmware download?
  11. What process is followed to ensure that the OMUfirmware is maintained at the same version/revision levels?
  12. Will any of the devices within your proposed solution be unable to support remote reprogramming? Remote firmware upgrades?
  13. Please complete/update the following:
  1. Alarms are initiated by device and have traffic priority. Alarms are typically received within xseconds.
  2. Blinks counts are reported x times per day and are not time stamped.
  3. Consumption data (daily or interval) is provided x times per day. Is this configurable?Are all consumption reports initiated by a poll or are they scheduled?
  4. On-demand read response time typically xto y seconds (electric).
  5. On-demand read response time typically x to y seconds (water).
  6. TOU schedules are maintained in the meter.
  7. Tamper alarms, from the AMI headed, include reverse rotation and outage. These alarms are available from any electric meter.
  1. What impacts to the AMInetwork performance if 15-minute consumption data is required from all single-phase and poly-phase meters?
  2. Are the consumption readings obtained by polling each meter or does the meter initiate the data transaction? Does the meter of other device receive a confirmation of a successful data transaction?
  3. What performance levels will you contract to? Examples include – please expand/modify:
  1. Network Coverage: Network coverage will meet or exceed 99.9% of the OMU service territory i.e. AMI vendor will connect to “Available Meters” over 99.9% of that service territory.
  2. Network Association and Reconnection Time: Network association time represents the time it takes for a device to establish its initial registration. Network reconnection is the period of time for a device to reconnect after a period of network stress caused by events, such as power outages, resulting in lost connection. Once the stress is removed the local area network, 95% of electric meters that were Available Meters prior to the event will reconnect within x assuming the stress was less than x hours in duration.
  3. Interval Reading. Single-phase and poly-phase electric Available Meters will each have the ability to collect intervals at to 5 minute increments
  4. Remote Reconfiguration. Customer will have the ability to remotely reconfigure Interval Reading on all electric Available Meters and upload the interval data at the end of each daily read period.
  5. Read Success Rate. Customer will be able to achieve a minimum 98% daily read for each electric Available Meter by 8 a.m. each day, a minimum 99% over any three consecutive day billing window and a minimum 99.9% over any 30 consecutive day period. For a requested read of one (1) Available Meter, a return read rate of less than x seconds and for a requested read of up to 100 Available Meters, a return read rate of 99% within x minutes.
  6. Remote Connect/Disconnect. It is expected that the individual electric Available Meters with remote connect/disconnect capability will action a remote disconnect request with confirmation within x seconds at a 98% success rate if no major system events (such as a major power outage) occur during this duration. Reconnect functionality will be the same.
  7. Time Stamped. All electric available meter reads, events, alarms, power outages and restorations will be date and time stamped
  8. Other
  1. If within your proposed system, water meters will provide consumption data to the electric meter, please describe the behavior that water meters will exhibit in case of an electric outage (for example, water meter can detect the inability to transmit data due to an outage, how long will they be able to store the data, when will they resume sending the data, etc.)
  2. Please provide the following specifics for different network levels within your proposed system (backhaul, HAN etc.):
  1. Frequency band(s) of operation
  2. Channel bandwidth
  3. Transmission capacity per channel
  4. Number of channels used by the system,
  5. Explanation of how signal security is provided (i.e., type of encryption)
  1. What access scheme is being used in the proposed solution (timeslot, CDMA, aloha access)?
  2. What RF transmit power levels will be used by each network device, including at the smart meters, devices within HAN, access points, etc.?
  3. What approximate percentage of the communications traffic (by link) will be used by AMI, and what will be used by other applications?
  1. What are the factors in determining capacity?
  1. In discussions with some industrial customers, two requests have come up. The first is to have access to historical interval data (kW and kWh) for analysis. The other request is for near real time access to kW load so the customer can modify production to reduce their peak demand.
  2. How would your solution support these requests?
  3. How do you define near-real time?
  4. What modifications to your proposed solution are required?
  5. What are the additional costs?

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