Notice of Intent to Sole Source - Inflation Reduction Act Application Support (IRAAS)

The USDA RD Technology Office (RDTO) has a follow-on requirement for the Inflation Reduction Act application development (previously awarded under the Development and Org Enhancements – Salesforce (DOES) task order) to complete application development and enhancements as well as provide maintenance of the existing minimal viable products (MVPs) delivered in support of the program. There are three MVP applications in production, Powering Affordable Clean Energy (PACE), Empowering Rural America (New ERA) and Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) that were developed under the previously competed BPA (12319820A0009). This BPA is no longer available for Rural Development’s use and the applications developed for RD Rural Utility Services (RUS) and Rural Business Cooperative Services (RBCS) supporting the Inflation Reduction Act program needs must be enhanced and maintained to support the critical 2024 delivery timelines. The original award was for immediate agile development and delivery of application systems to support 3 new programs. The first program (PACE) was delivered with minimal functionality August 15, 2023 and has continued to receive minimal functional updates monthly following the agile development process. The second program (New ERA) was delivered October 31, 2023 and the 3rd application is in the process of delivering agile/iterative functionality (delivered 8/15 & 11/15 to preproduction environments for testing) that does not meet the program minimal viable product (MVP) requirements. 2 of the 3 applications are in production and require support post production support RD included maintenance in the planned award in addition to the ongoing development that is required to achieve the business identified MVP. Due to the acceptance of Inflation Reduction Act loan and grant applications, RD continues to develop and deliver partial functionality at 30 day increment enhancements to the existing RD PACE/New ERA systems, with RGAP anticipated to be 6 months from initial production release ready. As this is a shared Salesforce Org, with multiple applications undergoing development simultaneously, maintenance support is required to ensure the “in use” loan/grant applications remain fully functional and is regression tested against all other applications(currently 6 under consecutive development). RD intends to collaborate with the PMO to establish a single award contract to address the requirement.