With its online portal, enPORTAL supports municipalities and energy suppliers in the procurement of electricity and gas.

Since April 2016, electronic bidder communication has been mandatory for energy tenders under public law. For this reason, enPORTAL has expanded its online portal to include this function and has since offered electronic bidder communication for electricity and gas tenders for municipalities and public institutions. The extension in the portal and on the portal operator's website gives bidders and energy suppliers non-discriminatory access to all relevant information. This means that the course of communication in the first and second phases of the award procedure can be fully traced at any time. The contracting authorities are supported by KUBUS Kommunalberatung & Service GmbH from Schwerin, which helped design all processes. For bidders and the contracting authority, this reduces the time and administrative effort enormously. For municipalities, electronic bidder communication means legally compliant documentation and better control in the award procedure..

Electronic presentation of the new EU public procurement directives

For more than a year, questions from bidders or energy suppliers regarding the tendering process for electricity and gas in public law procedures may only be asked and answered online and thus openly. "As portal operator, we have mapped the EU requirements in the portal together with KUBUS Kommunalberatung in order to offer public-law institutions an optimal e-tendering process," says Clemens Graf von Wedel, Managing Director of enPORTAL. "The technical expansion to include electronic bidder communication is another important step in the award procedure," says Monika Dreekmann, Head of Energy Tenders at KUBUS Kommunalberatung & Service GmbH.

Non-discriminatory access to bidder questions

From now on, energy suppliers who want to participate in a public electricity or gas tender via enPORTAL can read all the questions and answers asked about the process on the portal operator's website under "Public tenders" or directly in the online portal. All interested bidders thus have non-discriminatory access to the communication process surrounding the energy tenders. This ensures transparency and better traceability. "With our online portal, energy suppliers have all the information on the tender process quickly and completely at their fingertips at all times," says Rainer Otto, Managing Director of enPORTAL.

Anonymous and efficient communication online

In the first step, bidders' questions on the electronic award procedure are received by KUBUS Kommunalberatung via the online portal, are screened by the staff and, if necessary, reformulated in a neutral manner in order to preserve data protection. This is an important requirement on the part of the legislator to ensure fair competition. "No question will reveal which bidder or supplier is behind it. We make sure that the focus is on the process and that it is not possible to draw conclusions about the author," says Monika Dreekmann from KUBUS Kommunalberatung. All communication takes place in the cloud and is therefore completely digital. "We had to break new ground in programming, as we could not fall back on a ready-made template. We oriented ourselves to the EU public procurement directives and digitally translated the processes. The result is a legally compliant, electronic bidder communication for energy tenders," says Rainer Otto, founder and owner of enPORTAL.

Positive response after the first tender

"The reactions from bidders and municipalities were consistently positive after the first tender," says Clemens Graf von Wedel, Managing Director of enPORTAL. The questions arose predominantly about the electronic process as well as details around the electricity and gas supply. "Since all bidders had the same access to the information, we did not have to answer certain questions more than once. This also made our work immensely easier," says Monika Dreekmann about the advantages of the new, digital process. All in all, the entire tendering process was greatly shortened and made more transparent.

Expertise in public law since 2009

enPORTAL is the first portal operator to launch electronic tenders for electricity and gas in accordance with Section 101 (6) GWB in 2009. Today, the company is one of the leading service providers for electronic energy tenders. Around 1,500 municipalities in Germany use the service and trust in the service provider's many years of expertise. With electronic bidder communication, a further milestone is reached in ensuring e-tendering. In cooperation with KUBUS Kommunalberatung, which serves municipalities and local authorities throughout Germany, numerous tenders, such as for 1,500 Bavarian municipalities, have already been successfully implemented and savings in the millions have been achieved.