After issuing a favorable review of the contractor’s performance over its first three years on the job, the Energy Department announced Tuesday it would retain Battelle Energy Alliance as operator of the department’s Idaho National Laboratory through 2014, as envisioned under its 2004 contract with the Battelle-led consortium.
DoE said the performance review of Battelle Energy Alliance (BEA) was required under the10-year contract it signed with the contractor in 2004 to run the Idaho lab, which is the department’s lead research facility for nuclear power and also conducts a wide range of homeland security and nuclear nonproliferation work for the government.
Under the contract, the department was to conduct its “special assessment” of BEA by the end of September 2008, three years after the contractor took over operation of the lab. DoE had the option of reducing the length of BEA’s contract if the assessment found BEA’s performance did not measure up to standards set under the contract.
“The department takes this evaluation seriously and a lot of work went into evaluating the lab performance over the past three years,” said Beth Sellers, manager of DoE’s Idaho Operations Office. “It pleases me very much to report that the contract will run its full term.”
DoE said its special assessment summary report praised BEA in several areas, including support of nuclear research and energy programs and its record on environment, health and safety.
The summary report also said BEA achieved a “notable increase in accountability and performance” in overall lab operations and that the contractor had shown “particularly strong performance” in homeland security programs, putting forth sound strategies for improving critical infrastructure protection and nuclear nonproliferation efforts.
DoE also said the summary report cited “areas of opportunity that require focused attention by BEA,” but it provided no details on those recommendations.
BEA is led by Battelle, the nonprofit research institute based in Ohio, and also includes Babcock & Wilcox Technical Services Group Inc., Washington Group International, the Electric Power Research Institute and an alliance of university collaborators led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.