Electric Vehicle Charge Points -supply, installation, maintenance and operation

Cambridge City Council is looking to install rapid and fast charge points for electric vehicles within the City and has already made policy and fiscal commitment to support this project. It is hoped the first installation will be complete by April 2017.

In addition, Cambridge City Council is one of 15 local authorities that have been invited to bid for funding from the Office of Low Emission Vehicles to install Rapid and Fast Charge Points for electric taxis and private hire vehicles. We will be bidding for a mix of Rapid and Fast chargepoints to be installed over the next five years.

A successful bid would provide funding for a minimum of four Rapid Charge Point installations but could provide funding for more than twenty in a high uptake scenario. This would be additional to the already committed Council funding.

The Council has limited knowledge of what solutions may be available from the commercial market and is thus keen to have a better understanding of what sort of products and options are available. This will help us refine and better understand what we need before starting a formal procurement exercise.

The Council recognises this is an area where technology is evolving quickly and is thus keen to allow the market to innovate with options and ideas that are available. We also recognise that a range of different commercial operating models probably exist and are keen to understand what sort of service solutions and income ownership models are available.

We will be looking for a contractor to supply, install maintain and operate the network on our behalf. We would ideally seek to appoint a contractor with whom we could establish a long term contract and relationship.

Whilst the contract may initially only include a smaller amount of core work it will probably include options for further work that we could call off at later dates if required, and if we secure extra funding. Further details of the requirement are included in the Request for Information (RFI) document attached.

The RFI includes a number of questions which we hope you will respond to. This will help us to understand the options that may be available and help us shape our requirement to achieve the best response from the market.

If you are unable to do so within that timeframe later responses will also be of interest. Your input to this exercise will be very helpful and we hope that you will take part. If you only wish to respond to parts of the RFI (rather than the entire document) that is acceptable.