IT firm needed to build "nuts and bolts" of government Green Deal

This article originally appeared on sister site businessgreen.com

IT firms are being urged to bid for a major contract to provide the "nuts and bolts" of the government's flagship Green Deal energy efficiency scheme, which will see the winner build a database that could hold up to six million property retrofitting plans over the next decade.

Gemserv is to issue an invitation to tender to find a firm to design and build a new Green Deal Central Change database (GDCC) that will hold the details of any property registered for the Green Deal and calculate fees owed to each supplier of energy efficiency measures.

The Green Deal is scheduled to be launched in October this year, allowing energy customers to make energy efficiency improvements to their homes and businesses at no initial upfront cost. Instead, payments are recouped through installments tagged on the energy bill of a property, so a bill payer will only be responsible for payments while living at the property.

As the appointed company that enables customers to switch energy suppliers, Gemserv is legally obligated to select a developer of the GDCC.

Speaking to BusinessGreen, Niemesh Amin, Gemserv project manager for the Green Deal, said it will be looking to hire a company that has previous experience in the energy market.

Gemserv expects to appoint the GDCC in May, so the database can go live on 1 October in line with the launch of the Green Deal.

"We're looking for a company to build the nuts and bolts of the Green Deal," said Amin.

"The database will need to scale up to government aspirations for the Green Deal. It will need to hold around a million plans at first but must be able to scale up to six million in five to 10 years."

He refused to reveal the expected value of the contract, but said it would be funded by energy suppliers as part of the Master Registration Agreement (MRA) that allows customers to switch energy supplier.

Any firm interested in bidding for the contract should email green.deal@gemserv.com.