Section 78.1 of the Ontario Energy Board Act, 1998, S.O. 1998, c. 15 Schedule B (OEB Act) and Ontario Regulation 53/05 under the OEB Act (O. Reg 53/05), set out the OEB’s authority to set payment amounts for Ontario Power Generation (OPG) nuclear facilities and certain hydroelectric facilities, including the form, methodology, assumptions and calculations used in setting payment amounts.
OPG is expected to file its 2022-2026 Payment Amounts application in late December 2020 (OPG Application). This application is expected to include proposals with respect to cost recovery of its forecast nuclear operations capital projects and a study regarding its nuclear benchmarking methodologies.
The OEB’s decision in OPG’s 2017-2021 Payment Amounts proceeding included a number of findings with respect to OPG’s nuclear operations capital projects (i.e. 10% disallowance to proposed in-service additions during the 2017-2021 period and rate base disallowances due to poor management of specific nuclear operations capital projects completed during the previous rate-setting term). The OEB also noted a concern regarding OPG’s poor performance relative to benchmarks. The OEB determined that OPG should be required to report total generating costs benchmarking on both normalized and non-normalized basis and file a review of its nuclear benchmarking methodologies in its 2022-2026 Payment Amounts application (EB-2016-0152, Decision and Order, pp. 17-18, 20-22, 51-52).
This RFP is issued concurrently with three (3) other Requests for Proposals (RFPs) and one (1) Request for Services (RFS) for expert services related to the OPG Application. Vendors that bid in response to this RFP who also may be interested in submitting bids in response to the other RFPs should consider their capacity to provide services in response to this RFP as well as the other RFPs, taking into account the anticipated volume and pace of work. Vendors should be prepared to work in coordination with the other Vendor(s) selected to support OEB staff on the OPG Application and demonstrate previous successful experience of collaboration with other vendors or consultants.
Objectives
To retain an expert who will review OPG’s 2022-2026 Payment Amounts Application, specifically OPG’s proposals regarding nuclear operation benchmarking information, capital and Operations & Maintenance (O&M) project business cases (excluding Darlington Refurbishment Project), and nuclear waste management evidence.
