Thank you for participating in this survey! 

The goal of this research is to increase uptake of cost-effective distributed energy resource (DER) technologies among California organizations.  A key factor in increasing DER uptake is understanding how California organizations make purchasing decisions.

Your responses will contribute to our efforts to increase the adoption of DER technologies invented and manufactured within California, and will inform how we develop the program to support California organizations in adopting DER technologies.  The following questions are aimed at identifying the barriers and opportunities that exist within the procurement process at your organization.

This survey was developed as part of the Cal-OP ACE Program ("California Opportunities for Procurement to Accelerate Clean Energy"), funded by the California Energy Commission.  We anticipate it will take 10-15 minutes to complete the survey. 
Definitions

1. Distributed energy resources (DER) - DER includes distribution connected-generation resources (e.g., solar, wind), energy efficiency, energy storage, electric vehicles, and demand response (DR) technologies.

2. "Your organization" refers to the business, group, and/or institution for which you have procurement decision-making influence. E.g., if you are employed by the University of California, but work on the UC Berkeley campus, "your organization" is UC Berkeley.

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1. What is the name of your organization?

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2. Which of the following best describes your organization's sector?

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3. Which of these best describes your role in the procurement process at your organization?

The following two questions are aimed at understanding how energy-consuming products are acquired by your organization. The first question focuses on direct purchase of energy-consuming products. The second question focuses on indirect purchases via service contracts through which the contractor provides the energy-consuming products.

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4. What types of products are you responsible for purchasing?

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5. What types of services are you responsible for purchasing?

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6. How much does your organization spend annually on the following procurement categories?

  Under $500k Up to $1 million Up to $25 million Over $25 million Don't know
IT products & services
Non-IT appliance products & services
Laboratory / medical products & services
Maintenance, repair & operations
Energy retrofit
New construction & renovation
Transportation / fleet products & services

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7. Among those involved in procurement at your organization, which types of roles have the most influence over purchasing decisions related to energy / energy-consuming products? 

  Minor influence
i.e. mostly assigned tasks
with little input
Moderate influence
i.e. assigned some tasks
but also granted input/decision-making powers
Major influence
i.e. significant input/decision-making powers (e.g., budget control, agenda setting)
Chief Financial Officer
Legal Counsel
Sustainability Manager
Energy Manager
Facilities Manager/Engineer
IT Managers
Contract Officer (CO) 
Fleet Manager
External consultants (e.g. A&E firms)

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8. Which, if any, of your procurement phases often become a bottleneck?

  Never Sometimes Often Always N/A
Specifying and selecting products
Developing contract documents
Legal review process
Gaining approvals
Ordering process
Shipping
In the following question, we are concerned about DER products. This includes distribution connected-generation resources (e.g., solar, wind), energy efficient products, energy storage products, electric vehicles, and demand response (DR) technologies.

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9. How often do any of the following factors prevent your organization from purchasing new DER products?

  Never Sometimes Often Always N/A
Interoperability with existing equipment
Lack of top management support
Lack of staff buy-in
Need to retrain staff 
Security (e.g., with internet-connected devices)
Availability of repair parts
Operational reliability
High cost / long-return on investment
Lack of financing options
Maintenance of the product

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10. How many internal combustion vehicles (ICE) or electric vehicles (EVs)/plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) are in your fleet? If not applicable, enter "0". 

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11. How often do you use pre-defined vendors (e.g., preferred vendors, pre-qualified vendors) for purchasing?

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12. Organizations often have competing priorities when making procurement decisions. Please rank the following goals in order of importance to your organization. 1 = most important, 7 = least important.

Tools (i.e. the specific business processes and systems that are used to implement purchasing decisions) play an important role in procurement outcomes. This next section collects data on your organization's use of these tools in purchasing.

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13. What procurement tools do you currently have in place for purchasing?

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14. If your organization needed to buy a new DER product that it had never bought before, how easy would it be to do that with your current procurement tools?

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15. Please list the names of specific e-procurement systems that you use at your organization. 'N/A' if unknown. 

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16. Please list the names of specific contracting software tools that you use at your organization. 'N/A' if unknown.

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17. In your budget-planning process for the next five years, which of the following product categories (i.e., types of technologies) will be a priority?

  Not a priority Low priority Medium priority  High priority
Heating, air conditioning, & ventilation (HVAC) equipment (heat pumps, chillers, rooftop units)
Water heating appliances
Lighting equipment & lighting controls
Building envelopes (windows, roofing, insulation)
Commercial & industrial refrigeration
Appliances (plug-loads)
Electric vehicle charging technologies
Electric vehicles
Distributed generation (solar, wind) 
Distributed storage technologies (batteries) 

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18. The Cal-OP project will provide the following tools and services to California organizations to assist with DER procurement. Please rank the following in order of greatest use to your organization. 1 = most useful, 8 = least useful.

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19. For which product categories would your organization find this additional support most useful?

  Very useful Somewhat useful Not at all useful Not applicable
Heating, air conditioning, & ventilation (HVAC) equipment 
Water heating appliances
Lighting equipment and lighting controls
Building envelopes
Building controls
Commercial & industrial refrigeration upgrades
Appliances (plug-loads)
Electric vehicle charging technologies
Electric vehicles
Distributed generation
Distributed storage technologies

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20. Please use space below to provide any additional comments or information you feel would be useful for the Cal-OP ACE research team (related to procurement, DER, etc.)

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21. If you would like to have survey results shared with you or participate in our future programs, please leave your contact info below.

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22. Are you willing to be contacted for a follow-up interview?

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