good morning everyone my name is carrie
hearn i'm with the virginia department
of energy
and
we are very pleased to be hosting this
uh
request for proposals solicitation
pre-proposal conference
uh for the low and moderate income
residential solar financing program in
wise county virginia
and we are seeking solar installation
and financing partners we have posted
this rfp
uh on the virginia procurement platform
called eva
with an issue date of june 21st 2022
rfp number 22de01
and austin you can go to the next slide
please
so a few logistics in the webinar
this webinar is being recorded it will
be available to the public
questions submitted during the webinar
will be made available in addendum 1 and
posted on eva on july 15 2022
and as you have questions during the
webinar please use the
webex q and a field
and we will address the answers either
verbally
or in writing
or in the addendum as we post it by july
15 2022
next slide please
so again my name is carrie hearn i work
for the virginia department of energy
also known as virginia energy i'm an
associate director in our renewable
energy and energy efficiency division
and i'm pleased to have with us here
today austin counts who is our rural and
industrial clean energy program manager
austin will be primarily presenting on
the rfp and the logistics of the process
and we also have aaron berryhill our
sink our solar program manager who is
helping to facilitate
the webex
so thank you aaron and austin and austin
you can go to the next slide
so virginia energy is a state agency we
are within the secretary of commerce and
trade
within the executive branch
you may have known us as the department
of mines minerals and energy or dmme and
we did have a name change in 2021
renamed to be the virginia department of
energy
and we go by virginia energy that went
into effect october 1st of 2021.
we do serve as the state's energy office
and
um on the other side of the agency there
is uh regulatory agencies that regulate
the extraction of minerals coal gas and
oil in virginia
we also serve to implement the
commonwealth's energy policy and we
promote and support economic economic
development opportunities of which we
hope this program is one
next slide please
so with that i will hand the program
over to austin
all right thank you carrie um can
everybody hear me okay
yes okay
so greetings everyone as mentioned
my name is austin i'm the royal energy
prairie man of the virginia department
of energy and today i'm going to quickly
run through some of the basics of our
rfp here today first we'll go through
the program purpose then we'll cover a
little bit about the background on our
project and why wise county was selected
as the focus area we'll also be
discussing the scope of services and the
timeline for the rfp itself
before finally jumping in and talking a
little bit about the submission and
evaluation process
before using the rest of our time today
for q a
and so we'll likely have a good 30
minutes or so for q a at least and so as
you're kind of going as we're going
through the presentation feel free to
use the q a box to submit any questions
along the way and we'll answer at the
very end
so the purpose of the lmi or load water
income solar
program and this rfp is to further the
goals of virginia energy's renewable
energy and energy efficiency division
it's the goal of this division to
implement clean energy policies
the clean energy policy of the
commonwealth and across virginia this
includes increasing access to and the
affordability of clean energy benefits
for all people in the commonwealth
this pilot program's goal is essentially
to advance these policy objectives by
demonstrating how clean energy financing
systems can reduce
homeowner energy burn
lowering bills and advanced clean energy
to plan implement specifically in low to
moderate income communities and as we
mentioned before this program is
specifically for wise county virginia
beyond these large overarching goals of
increasing clean energy accessibility
this load and water income solar program
has several additional purposes kind of
to help meet that goal as steps along
the way
first we want to provide solar financing
marketing and servicing for residential
solar projects at specifically single
family owner occupied low to motor
income households in wise county
virginia
these installations should provide a
cash positive energy savings from the
very first year
second
we really want to incentivize clean
energy business and economic development
in rural virginia by creating jobs and
opportunities for entrepreneurs and
small businesses you will see this a
little bit later
on in the process but it is a valuable
part of the application itself
another purpose of the program is to
gather data on the potential to scale up
such or similar programs for lmi health
households all across virginia
this scalability will ensure that the
benefits of solar energy is is
eventually accessible to everyone in the
commonwealth
and then finally with this program we
want to inform the clean energy advisory
board and the affiliated low to moderate
income solar loan and rebate fund
on its processes for the future
this program was created in close
collaboration with the clean energy
advisory board for this very purpose and
you can see the state
policy
on screen
that can give you a little bit more
information about that program
later on
so i wanted to jump right into a little
bit of the background of the project
project and specifically
why we chose wise county virginia
as the location for this initial program
but first i want to take just a moment
to define low to moderate income
i'm sure
many of you already know this but in
virginia low to moderate income or lmi
is defined as any household with an
income at or below 80 percent of the
state or median
state or area median income
whichever is higher
and so this means that according to the
2022 census bureau data
the lmi threshold
for our state median household income is
about sixty one thousand dollars
per household
and so this is taking into account the
eighty percent of the state
median income
while in wise county specifically that
threshold is around thirty three
thousand dollars to be considered a lmi
household
and so you can see the state median
household income
is well above what we see at the western
level
furthermore using data from the national
energy labs replica data set and the
solar for all tool we can see the
importance of scaling up low to modern
income solar financing in wise county
specifically and across the entire
commonwealth
so in wise county alone there's an
estimated three thousand lmi homeowner
occupied households
that are suitable for solar production
and then whenever we look statewide
across virginia this number is estimated
to be just under half a million homes
this all adds up to about 3 000
megawatts of solar potential in virginia
through just low to water income solar
galaxy
and so to jump into a little bit of the
specifics of wise county i wanted to
start with a really quick slide just
informing you
of the utilities available in the
community and so in wise that the
accounting that you can see circled on
screen
you see that residents or energy users
are mostly divided up into two different
utilities
split between appalachian power and
kentucky utilities or also called old
dominion power
in virginia
and so these are the two major utilities
that if selected for the project you
would be working through
another important thing to notice about
the rfp is the weatherization
requirements for participating
households this will be an important
part of identifying households moving
forwards and so for this the virginia
department of housing and community
development funds a weatherization
assistance program specific in wise
county and some of the surrounding
countries
this is primarily through appalachian
community action and development agency
and in 2020 and 2021
apca
had provided weatherization services to
at least
44 single-family homes in wise county
over the past five to six years with
another 24 homes in wait for additional
assistance
and so an important part of this program
will be working with dhc dhcd and apca
to help identify low to moderate income
solar applicable
participants and so this is going to be
a very important part of the success of
the el masala program
another important bit of background for
wise county specifically is that the
county
achieved a gold designation from
soulsmart in 2021 essentially removing
some of the red tape
behind solar installations and making it
easier faster and hopefully cheaper to
permit residential solar installations
through this designation
the county commits to one providing
clear guidance about solar permitting an
inspection process
two to reviewing application
applications
and construct
sorry
reviewing application and construction
documents within three days
of submission
three to requiring no more than two
inspections for a rooftop solar array
making sure that process is quick and to
the point
four completing solar pv
or photovoltaic and phase of the
inspection requests
and in addition to this they also
provide a lot of information directly on
their website which you can see on
screen where that you can google
wise county virginia soft smart
and this website provides a lot of the
important information
on fees and licensing and some of the
other processes for solar developers
directly on the wise county page for how
you can get residential and other forms
of solar energy
permitted in moss county virginia
and so moving on a little bit more
directly to the rfp itself
we want to talk a little bit about the
terms of service terms of service and so
if selected as the recipient of the rfp
the partner will help market design
finance install maintain and report on
installed solar
solar photovoltaic systems in wise
county
over the 24 month timeline of the
program essentially two years
the selected partners for this program
will be able to access
four hundred thousand dollars for
financing support for solar financing to
be used as proposed in the rfp this can
take place in a variety of ways and
really just ensures that those funds are
going directly towards the installation
of solar panels
as proposed
um
sorry
and in addition to this around 35 000
for program marketing and outreach
support will also be provided
to
to the partners
and so
i should say that all of these slides
are not a super in-depth version of
what's in the rfp
these numbers are broken down a little
bit more in the rfb giving
more exact numbers to how many how much
funding can go towards a single project
but all that is provided in the rfp
itself and as kerry mentioned available
through eva for download
so in addition to these broader goals
rfp also has a number of key and
preferred services listed here are some
of the higher level services and again
you can see the complete list of each
key and preferred service in the rfp
itself
major key services include ensuring lmi
homeowners may receive solar
installations on their property without
down payment
and that these installations should also
guarantee a cash pause a cash flow
positive situation for the homeowners
within the first year
and so these are just the very baseline
key major services to include in the in
your proposals
there are also several preferred
services such as
enabling the monetization of federal
income tax credits or the itc
requiring no additional collateral
beyond the solar panels
and if you propose a lease or some other
form
provide that can
provide early buyout terms we
it is preferred that you're able to do
so
so another really important part of the
rfp to recognize
is where the funding is coming from
and so the funding for this program
specifically is coming from the american
recovery and reinvestment act provided
by the national department of energy
because of this there are a few
considerations that would have to be
taken into account once households begin
to apply
and so once household participation
applications begin coming in as further
defined and laid out in the rfp
each household will be evaluated for
compliance with the davis bacon act
the historic preservation rules
compliance with nepa or the national
environmental protection act
and
and the by american provision
several of these provisions are somewhat
unlikely to apply to residential solar
systems roof mounted systems or
privately owned and utilized buildings
however
evaluation must be done at the
individual level to ensure that this is
the case
additional information on the the
applications of these policies can be
found in the rfp's appendix e
and so if you really want to dive a
little bit more into that there's a lot
of information available in the rfps
appendix e
and also online about some of the larger
doe
programs
so moving on from the terms of services
onto the timeline for the rfp
as you already know the rfe was issued
on june 21st
so after that issue
six weeks after the rfp responses will
be due
the next major deadline for the rfp is
actually this thursday july 7th this is
when all questions or
per the rfp
you can find her email address
and a little bit more information on how
to send the questions in the rfp
document
so if you intend on submitting official
questions outside of this webinar
please refer to the rfp for where to
send those questions
after all questions have been submitted
an addendum will be released on july
15th including all questions and answers
submitted
after the addendum all proposals will be
due on august 2nd
these proposals must be submitted
through eva virginia's procurement
website
and i'll have a little bit more on that
here in just a few slides after
submission the department of energy
and an rfp selection committee will
begin reviewing each proposal
and
will notice an attempt to award sometime
in late september
after the notice of intent is issued the
parties will enter a contract
negotiation phase before a formal
awardance of the project
it's also worth noting that should for
any reason an addendum of the rfp will
be released after the indicated date in
the timeline
the proposal submission deadline may be
extended to no less than 10 days prior
to the newly published addendum
if a second identity is released on a
timeline that is already 10 days before
the listed proposal deadline no
extension i will be granted
so
now that we have the timeline laid out
and out of the way i wanted to go really
quick really quick uh proposal process
and so for your proposal you can
download the pro the proposal
application form which is a is a
separate word document form from the rfp
as well as the rfp on eva
and a link to both of those documents
and the eva pages on screen through the
tiny url
each proposal must include
a cover page a narrative known to us
the proposal narrative page limit will
not include any any appendices including
uh
the proposal of materials
or any financing data or information
sheets and so all of those are separate
from the 20 page limit
in addition to the
proposal narrative a small business
subcategory
subcontracting plan will also be
required
as well as a list of
three business or partner references and
a brief signature page
each of these can be found in the
application form
austin i think just repeat number two
around the proposal narrative your audio
broke up for just a minute there
oh thank you carrie i'm sorry everyone
so
[Music]
each proposal will include a cover page
but these pros will also include a
proposal narrative of no more than 20
pages
and so this proposal narrative is and
all of the associated questions are a
part of the application form that you
can download on eva
the proposal narrative page limit will
not include any appendices um including
parts of the proposal such as material
solar panel racking systems or financing
data and information sheets
and so all those can be attached as
appendices and do not count towards the
20 page limit
and as previously mentioned just in case
i missed anything at all
it
each application is also required to
provide a small business subcontracting
plan
and a list of at least three business or
partner references and a brief signature
page
and once again all these can be found on
the application form as downloadable on
eva
i just wanted to include this small
extra slide for the small business
subcategory subcontracting plan to
stress that all offers are required to
fill out the plan as provided in the
application form whether you plan to use
a qualifying subcontractor or not
if you are a certified if you are
certified by the virginia department of
small business and supplier diversity as
a micro or small business
complete section a of the film of the
form
this includes certified women-owned or
minority-owned businesses
when they have also received the small
business certification
if you are not a certified small or
micro business
you will complete the separate second
section of this form and if you are not
a certified small business nor do you
plan on sub contracting with a small
business
please indicate as such and submit in
the
section b of the form as well
so again for submission
all offers must submit their response to
the rfp through eva so offers must also
be registered as a vendor on the eva
platform if you intend to respond to the
rfp make sure to register for eva as
soon as possible to ensure
a smooth process for your proposal
you can see the process for registering
on the eva website as linked in the rfp
more information is also provided in the
rfp appendix f
laying out a little bit more of the
importance in the process
for registering through eva virginia's
procurement platform
failure to submit your response through
eva on time or failure to register on
eva will result in your proposal being
rejected so i can't stress this enough
that it is very important that you get
registered through eva as soon as
possible and that you familiar
familiarize yourself with the program
well ahead of the
application due date
so finally i wanted to jump into the
evaluation process for just another
moment
as shown in the rfp proposal evaluation
and scoring
uh we'll take
into account these five major topics
and as most of the other things in the
rsp you can see more details on this
evaluation score metrics in the rfp
itself so make sure to review thoroughly
for the rfp out of 100 total points for
each application
30 for each proposal 30 points will be
awarded on the adequacy to demonstrate
metrics reporting per the criteria
listed in the scope of services
and so there are a variety of metrics
that are required throughout the
two-year program
so that we can essentially study the
outcomes of this program along the way
barriers into wise county and so your
ability to actually demonstrate and
share these metrics throughout the
process
is vitally important to the overall
success of a program
an additional 20 points will be awarded
for program design alignment with the
commonwealth's energy equity and
environmental justice goals
20 points will be awarded
for budget maximization so how you plan
on using the 400 000 and the marketing
support
and how well that aligns to
to the programmatic goals
and then find and then another 20 points
will be awarded to the overall value of
the proposition provided to element
households
so how much of the funding is actually
going towards making solar
installations viable
for single-family owner-occupied
illinois homes
and the final 10 points will be awarded
to promising approaches demonstrated
for essentially being able to include
marketing and communication strategies
so as a vital part of some of the
questions we really want to look into
what is your proposal
for not only
this financing aspect of the program but
also how are we reaching illinois
households in wise county virginia
what's the marketing strategies what's
the communication strategies both with
community partners and between the
partner and virginia energy
and so that rounds out the total of 100
points
for the review
for this evaluation we have put together
an evaluation committee that will be the
deciding entity on issuing an attempt to
award and so this committee will have
the option of inviting selected offers
as a separate interview
with the committee for further
clarification of the proposal prior to
making making a decision on the
on the intent to award
this committee is comprised of the
virginia department of energy
the virginia clean energy advisory board
advisory board
people incorporated
solar united neighbors of virginia and
the solar energy industries association
so a big thank you to our evaluation
committee members
that may be joining us here today
and
with that i'd also like to give a
special thanks to the virginia
department of
sorry
to the clean energy states a lot
sorry to the clean energy stakes
alliance yeah and the virginia office of
the attorney general this rfe would not
be possible without their assistance
throughout the past year
and with that
this is just some of the important
information of the rfp i'd like to
stress that any proposer of the rfp
should fully review the rfp itself
including the appendices
to get the full picture of the reporting
requirements the scope of work and the
proposal process again during this
webinar we really hit just some of the
high level
uh
parts of the rfp and so any further
details can be found in the rfp itself
or submitted through questions to carrie
hearn
and with that i would like to move us on
to the q a portion of the conference
here today please submit all questions
in the q a box accessible at the bottom
right of your screen
all questions and the provided answers
will be recorded and included in the
scheduled addendum release
so with that being said i'm going to
keep my slots up and we can
cycle through them as needed for q a
but i'll pass it over to kerry to see if
we have any questions currently in the
chat
okay thank you very much austin
[Music]
i will be facilitating the question and
answer so
individuals can submit your question if
you go to the
bottom right of the screen and you click
q a it should open up the question and
answer
window
and you can
type your question in and hit send and
we will
review the questions these will all be
incorporated into the addendum and added
to the list of answers that we will
publish
at the next phase
so
one question is it sounds like
homeownership is a prerequisite
does this have to be for owner-occupied
households and
i will go ahead and answer that that's
an easy question
yes this is for
single family owner occupied households
so homeownership is
a prerequisite of the program
and austin uh if you'd like to add
anything else to that
nope i i think that is accurate i think
that
once again kind of as laid out in the
rfp
single-family owner occupied households
are the primary target and the only ones
that will be applicable to have this to
receive financial support
um and that comes with a variety of
reasons
and
having the
owner occupied status of the home really
allows us to look at several of the
aura funding stipulations
making sure that that funding through
the american recovery and reinvestment
can actually
reach the homeowners themselves
and so i would just agree with kerry
that yes that is a requirement for
participation in the program
and i will also add that that is
consistent with the
low to moderate income solar loan and
rebate fund that the clean energy
advisory board has also been
uh working specifically to structure
which this is a
you know case study pilot program so
consistency is key
okay another question
uh will the city of norton be included
or excluded from this program as it
relates to
uh eligibility within wise county
virginia
yeah so as the city of norton is a
separate city from the county
um
the city is very likely to be ineligible
however i will say that we can certainly
follow up in q a and provide a
concrete response to that through the
addendum
but um
currently it is not expected
to
qualify as a section of wise county even
though it is a city within the county
limits
or i guess i should say surrounded by
the county
okay
and um there's a question regarding the
definition or criteria for low to
moderate income households for the
purpose of the program
do you want to go back to that slide
austin and
uh review the specific criteria
for wise county
so the uh
area median income is
um
for wise county 33 33 000 two twenty
eight dollars so that's the household
income uh threshold
um
and the state median income is sixty one
thousand so which one applies to the
qualifications
so part of the rfp
um i don't wanna i wanna pull this up in
the rfp itself just to
make sure
let me just one moment
and as austin is pulling that up
if others have questions please submit
it in writing into the q a panel
all right
thank you all um
sorry for the delay so i just wanted to
be able to read this directly from the
rfe itself and so for the purpose of the
request for proposals so this rfp the
lmi
household is defined as any household
with income at or below 80 of the state
median income or regional median income
whichever is greater
and so with the state median income
being greater than the wise county
median income
then we would suspect that the 61
thousand dollars would be the threshold
for this for households participating in
this program
great um so that is all the questions
that we have so far
we will
keep this open and again
if individuals have a question please
type it into the question and answer box
and send that our way
um and again those questions can also be
directed uh via email
um to
and those those questions will come to
my inbox
which which austin
reviewed and which is detailed in the
rfp specifically
is that right austin
sorry can you repeat that my internet
was struggling a little bit okay
questions are coming to me um by july
15th correct
yes that is correct
okay oh sorry so
no so questions are coming
questions should be submitted to you
gary
by the seventh
and so
all questions should be submitted for
the rfp to carry her in through her
email
by july 7th end of the day
okay so this
thursday july 7th
i can go to that slot as well
and we will res we will release the
answers
in the addendum by july 15th
that's correct
i do not see any additional questions
coming in
um
[Music]
i'd be
happy to keep this open
if people think of other questions
otherwise we will
close it out
so we can leave it open maybe for
another
four or five minutes
so we really appreciate everyone
attending today and
there is a lot of detailed information
as austin described
in the
rfp itself
um
other questions can be submitted to my
email address it's carrie.hearn
energy.virginia.gov
that is
c-a-r-r-i-e dot
h-e-a-r-n-e at energy
spelled out e-n-e-r-g-y dot virginia
spelled out dot gov
okay i don't see any other questions so
thank you everyone for attending today
thank you austin for reviewing the
program details
in the slides and
verbalizing
summaries of those sections of the rfp
again questions can be submitted to
me at my email address by this thursday
july 7th
and we will post answers to those
questions as an addendum
by july 15th
details of the rfp can be found on the
virginia procurement platform which is
eva
and
we thank everyone for attending and i
wish you all a very good day and
with that i think we'll go ahead and
stop recording and close out the webinar