Competition Between Franchised Utility Companies

There is no legal requirement to compete for utility incentive services provided by the "established source" utility company to a Federal facility in the utility's franchised service territory. If such services are available to customers of the utility company, the Energy Policy Act of 1992 states that there should be no restriction on the Federal facilities directly availing themselves of the same service as any other customer.

However, if there is more than one serving utility company offering utility energy services (for example, a gas company and an electric company), the Federal Acquisition Regulations and good fiscal management would require the government to evaluate each utility and select the one that provides the best value. This evaluation can be as simple as a discussion of the experience, expertise, and specific offer of each, to limit the administrative costs on both public and private sectors, or as rigorous as a formal competitive procurement process.

The decision to compete and the level of competition are completely at the discretion of the Federal facility, based on the specific situation and unique constraints and opportunities. It is also strongly recommended that the utility company be required to competitively select the technical subcontractors to do the actual work and that the subcontracting plan comply with the Federal utility contract requirements (either General Services Administration [GSA] area-wide or other delegated authority contract).