Description of goods to services to be bid:

The goal of NYSERDA’s Community Heat Pump Systems Program PON 4614 is to support studies and construction projects to explore and demonstrate widely-replicable use cases where connecting a cluster of buildings via a network of heating pipes driven by heat pumps appears to have a better value proposition compared to serving those buildings individually via “thermally-islanded” heat pumps. This program is open to but is not limited to any of the following features: small (a cluster of ten or more single-family houses) or medium (a college campus, a multifamily residential complex consisting of multiple buildings, an office or medical park, etc.) or large (an urban core consisting of one or numerous city blocks); buildings all owned by a single entity or buildings having unrelated owners; new construction or retrofit of existing facilities; a system owned/operated by a private entity or by a utility or by a public entity or by a public-private partnership.

In situations where a proposer has credible reason to believe that a community-style heat pump configuration will yield better value proposition than an individual building heat pump configuration, a Category A Scoping Study would compare-and-contrast such two configurations so as to assess and quantify such expectation. For example, if a campus has a central boiler with steam distribution loop piping and seeks to pivot to heat pump-based hydronic space heating, the compare/contrast analysis should address:
• The individual building heat pump configuration: abandoning the campus distribution loop and pivoting each building to be thermally-islanded with its own heat pump system, versus
• The community-style heat pump configuration: either pivoting the campus distribution loop to water at hot temperature in conjunction with a centralized heat pump system and hydronic radiators in each building, or pivoting the campus distribution loop to water at ambient temperature in conjunction with heat pumps in each building connected to the campus loop.

If changes are made to this solicitation notification will be posted on NYSERDA’s website at: www.n/funding-opportunitiesyserda.ny.gov

Eligibility/Qualifications Requirements/Preferences:

Projects which support Low- or Moderate-Income communities or Environmental Justice areas will be given preference.

End-use customers to be served by the proposed community-style heat pump system must pay the System Benefits Charge (SBC) on either a portion or on their entire electric bill at the thermal usage site.

Projects must address a community, defined as a single integrated system (networked loop) either serving at least two large buildings (the two buildings summing to at least 40,000 square feet of conditioned space to be heated by the community-style heat pump system), or serving the conditioned space of at least ten (10) buildings of any size to be heated by the community-style heat pump system. Note that multiple buildings connected as a single structure (e.g., via enclosed catwalks or tunnels or connective corridors etc.) will be deemed to consist of 'at least two (2) buildings' and if it exceeds the 40,000 square foot threshold will be eligible to propose to this solicitation even if no other structures are included in the proposal.

Each of the four categories in the solicitation has a specific set of proposer eligibility criteria relating to prior experience.