The QUACO project draws together several research infrastructures with similar technical requirements in magnet development. By pooling efforts on technological requirements and using their experience from prior procurements, the partners in QUACO will act as a single buyer group. The pre-competitive procurement (PCP) instrument used in this project will thus take away the mismatch between the high-end R&D effort and the existing market and allow large and small specialised companies to increase the speed of their own research and technology development
The QUACO partners are:
- Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique et aux Energies alternatives (CEA), France,
- European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), Switzerland,
- Centro De Investigaciones Energeticas, Medioambientales Y Tecnologicas (CIEMAT), Spain and
- Narodowe Centrum Badan Jadrowych (NCBJ), Poland
The scope is to procure 2 pilot 3,8 m quadrupole magnets (Q4) with two 90 mm aperture, an integrated gradient of 440T with 120T/m in the transverse plane, with operational temperature of 1.9K that will be installed in the HL-LHC matching sections. More technical information can be found on this link
CERN will act as the lead procurer that will coordinate and lead the joint procurement in the name and on behalf of the aforementioned organisations.
This procurement will take the form of a pre-commercial procurement (PCP) that has started on 1 March 2016 and will end in February 2020. The PCP will award R&D services contracts to a number of R&D providers in parallel to compare competing alternative solution approaches. This will be done in a phased approach with a framework agreement that covers 3 R&D phases (solution design, prototyping, pilot deployments made available to end users from the research communities supported by the buyers group) with intermediate evaluations after each phase that will progressively select the best competing solutions that will be offered a specific contract for the next phase. Testing of the prototypes is expected to take place at CERN by experts and end-users and in this way the PCP will provide a first customer test reference to participating R&D providers.
Interested parties are invited to attend an open market consultation which will be held in Geneva on 30 march 2016. At the open market consultation, attendees will be provided with an overview on the project objectives, the PCP process and key contract clauses and will have an opportunity to pose questions.
Interested parties are requested to register for the event by 18th March 2016 at the latest by registering here. Available places will be allocated on a first-come-first-served basis. The event can also be followed online via a webcast for registered participants.
Participation of interested parties to the open market consultation is ensured in English.
Participation to the open market consultation is not part of any pre-qualification or selection process and is not a prerequisite for participation in any subsequent procurement. All information provided to participants during the open market consultation (including Q&A) and the proceedings of the open market consultation will be published online in English afterwards on this site.
You can access the Prior Information Notice (PIN) here
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