II.2.3) Place of performance

NUTS code:

UK

II.2.4) Description of the procurement

The Environment Agency (EA) requires a Supplier to provide the Central Management and Control Unit (CMCU) and the Quality Assurance and Quality Control (QA/QC) for the UK Hydrocarbon Monitoring Network from 1st September 2024 until 31st August 2029. <br/><br/>The main functions of the networks are to provide information about:<br/>• Compliance with the EU Ambient AQSR.<br/>• The long-term trends of hydrocarbons in mainly urban areas<br/>• The accuracy of the volatile organic compound’s emission inventory and subsequent ozone modelling.<br/>The networks consist of five (5) interdependent elements:<br/>• The monitoring sites containing EA owned monitoring equipment maintained under the contract. The equipment at the monitoring sites is in either self-contained structures owned by LA’s or the EA but managed under other Air Quality contracts.<br/>• In the automatic network, preliminary data analysis and storage instrumentation that the Supplier will need to provide. <br/>• In the automatic network, there is a telemetry system.<br/>• Quality assurance and quality control of the network and the monitoring data and a central data assessment, storage, and dissemination unit (DDU) (which is operated under contract by DEFRA) and is not part of the tender.<br/>The Hydrocarbon Network Operator is responsible for the management of a national network of air pollution monitoring sites throughout the UK for the measurement and assessment of Benzene (as non-automatic sites and automatic sites) as well as volatile organic compounds at automatic sites. The operator will be responsible for upkeep, collection, analysis QA/QC and transfer of automatic and non-automatic data to contractors who have responsibility for wider dissemination of the data. <br/><br/>Objectives of the Programme<br/>The objective of the Automatic Hydrocarbon Network is to continue delivery and encompass new monitoring using automatic analysers that can measure additional hydrocarbons to align with changes to the pollution climate of the UK.<br/>The network provides information on:<br/>• Concentrations of twenty-nine (29) hydrocarbons in urban and rural areas to investigate long term trends.<br/>• To ensure the UK’s compliance with the EU Air AQSR for benzene and the requirement to monitor ozone precursors. <br/>• To validate and improve the accuracy of the UK’s volatile organic compounds emissions inventory and subsequent ozone and secondary particulate modelling.<br/>All monitoring (automatic and non-automatic) and QA/QC procedures must be compliant with any European Committee for Standardisation (CEN) standards produced for benzene.

II.2.14) Additional information

The purpose of this PIN is a request for information, offering suppliers the preliminary opportunity to share their potential ideas for the network. In order to understand the markets appetite and ability to resource and bid for this work, we are requesting you respond to this PIN to confirm if you are interested in bidding for this work and that you can meet any or all of the requirements outlined above. Your response should be submitted by email to dgc-laww-buyer@defra.gov.uk by the closing date of 18th April 2024 (15:00). The Authority may contact you to confirm your interest and ability to meet our requirements.<br/>The response to this PIN will determine if/ when we are able to commence a procurement process. This PIN does not commit the Authority to progressing this opportunity beyond this point.<br/>It should also be noted that this PIN invites individuals and organisations to express an interest in this exercise only, and it is NOT a pre-qualification questionnaire, and is NOT part of any pre-qualification or selection process.