Please see Section V.2 of the RFP Rules. The “bid assurance collateral” is an amount due with the Part 2 Proposal. The amount of bid assurance collateral required is $8 per REC of any forecast quantity included in the Proposal and $4 per REC for identified systems included in the Proposal. Forecast quantities are only possible for systems in the Sub-25 Category. A Bidder must submit bid assurance collateral in the form of cash or of a Pre-Bid Letter of Credit and the Bidder must make this election in the Part 2 Form.

If a Bidder elects to submit cash as bid assurance collateral, the Bidder must make the payment by one of the following three (3) accepted methods: (i) by check payable to “Illinois Power Agency”, following all instructions supplied by the Procurement Administrator;  (ii) using e-pay, which is the electronic, e-check payment program administered by the Illinois State Treasurer, following all instructions supplied by the Procurement Administrator in this regard; or (iii) by ACH, (Automatic Clearing House) in CCD or CCD+ format, provided that the Bidder advises the Illinois Power Agency that it is requesting to remit payment via the ACH method, provided that the Bidder can provide a valid fax number for the paying entity, and provided that the Bidder follows all instructions supplied by the Illinois Power Agency by fax to the fax number provided by the Bidder. The Illinois Power Agency is not able to accept wire transfers. The Procurement Administrator makes available to Bidders additional instructions for submitting cash as bid assurance collateral with the Part 1 Notification.

Please note that any requests for return of cash must be in the form of an invoice to the Illinois Power Agency and, as such, processing of requests for return of cash will be delayed until a Fiscal Year 2016 State of Illinois budget is officially adopted, or an appropriation for the Illinois Power Agency is otherwise approved into law.

If a Bidder elects to submit a Pre-Bid Letter of Credit as bid assurance collateral, the Pre-Bid Letter of Credit must be in the form of the Standard Pre-Bid Letter of Credit or incorporate only modifications approved by the IPA and posted to the procurement website after the Part 1 Proposal process. Bidders may submit comments or propose modifications to the Pre-Bid Letter of Credit in their Part 1 Proposal. The Standard Pre-Bid Letter of Credit is provided as Appendix 6 of these RFP Rules. A list of acceptable modifications to the Standard Pre-Bid Letter of Credit will be posted to the procurement website.

This FAQ has been updated since it was originally posted on 05-21-2015.