In every industry, professionals are keeping an ear to the ground and trying to stay one step ahead of events and changes coming down the pipeline. No one wants to get caught playing catch-up; anticipating what’s ahead allows you to make adjustments and keep daily operations seamless. From a business development standpoint, everyone wants that leg up on their competition; to have the ability to know what ventures are around the corner and to get a foot in the door early on. The question is, how do you figure out what’s coming?

Solar Policy

As providers of energy market intelligence, we often hear from our clients and colleagues in the industry that they are seeking pre-RFP intelligence. They want to know what RFPs are going to be released and when so that they can get out ahead of the bidding process. Providing this insight has proven to be a challenge, as the issuing of an RFP is usually the very beginning of a company communicating publicly that they are looking to involve outside parties. However, the insight is out there if you know where to look.

Uncovering pre-RFP intelligence requires taking a deeper look at what’s happening behind the scenes in the industry. Often times the best option is to form prior relationships with companies that are likely to issue bids in the future. Energy Acuity has traditionally encouraged these relationships by providing project contact information and the functionality to search for industry executives within our tool. Other pre-RFP efforts include tracking first-hand conversations with utilities and providing insight into their future plans for investment and timelines for adopting new technologies. Energy Acuity’s analysts also provide notes on project-specific conversations with insights that can be found in the AnalystIQ section of the database.

One valuable (and seemingly-overlooked) source for pre-RFP information is Policy data. Paying attention to shifts in policy is a great way to stay ahead of industry trends, and can be a strong indication of where money is flowing. Energy Acuity now tracks over 2,230 policy dockets, each with a profile that includes the location, topic, status, docket number, links to related websites, and an in-depth summary of the proceeding. It’s through these profiles that subscribers are able to identify instances where a utility makes their intent to release an RFP known, or where it’s clear there will be an increase in technology implementation or project development in order to meet state-level regulations.

Below is one example of pre-RFP intelligence discovered in our policy data. In summarizing a docket submitted by Entergy, we were able to identify in December of 2015 that Entergy had plans to issue an RFP in February of 2016.

Entergy_RFP_Example.jpg

In following up with this information, we found that Entergy did, in fact, issue an RFP for renewable resources, and has since changed the deadline for submissions to July 2016.

Tracking policy information helps Energy Acuity provide subscribers with actionable insight into a utility’s plans for the future. Whether you want to get involved and influence proceedings that may impact your industry, or you want to stay ahead of changes and opportunities that may be coming down the pipeline, it pays to pay attention to what policies are being initiated.

 

Source: Energy Acuity

 

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Energy Acuity (EA) is the leading provider of power generation and power delivery market intelligence. EA’s unique approach merges primary research, public resource aggregation, web monitoring and expert analysis that is delivered through a simple, dynamic online platform. This allows our clients to focus on actionable information and win business over the competition.