Official UK procurement notice
ECP & OPDE Maintenance Support
Authority: NATIONAL ENERGY SYSTEM OPERATOR LIMITED (Public body)
What is being bought
Published requirement descriptionProvision of ongoing maintenance and application operation support services for NESO's European Energy Communication Platform (ECP) and Operational Planning Data Environment (OPDE) applications. These business-critical applications enable secure communication and the exchange of operational planning data between NESO, European Transmission System Operators (TSOs) and interconnectors in accordance with ENTSO-E requirements.
The services include application and technical support, incident and problem management, change and configuration management, deployment and release support, service requests, user support and associated operational support activities.
The lotProcurement structure
single lot · no lot value publishedLot #1Awarded
Procedure terms & legal framework
From the official record- Procedure method
- Direct award
- Legal basis
- UKPGA · 2023/54 Procurement Act 2023
- Notice status
- Awarded without competition
- Procurement threshold
- Unspecified in notice
- Regulatory regime
- Utilities
- Commercial structure
- Stand-alone contract (no framework)
- Competition type
- Direct award (no call for competition)
- GPA / WTO covered
- Unspecified in notice
- Recurring procurement
- Unspecified in notice
- First published
- 26 Aug 2026, 17:09 BST
- Last source update
- 26 Aug 2026, 17:21 BST
- FTS notice number
2026/S 000-081522- Latest notice
- Contract award notice (UK6)
- Delivery area
- Official registry OCID
ocds-h6vhtk-06ed06Find a Tender
- Why no open competition
- Single Suppliers Technical Reasons
- Published justification
Unicorn is the only viable supplier capable of providing the complete requirement due to the specialist technical nature of the ECP and OPDE applications and the ENTSO-E governance arrangements. For ECP, Unicorn is the only capable supplier to provide the required maintenance and support. For OPDE, the supplier market is highly specialised and limited, with only Unicorn having the complete required technical expertise across the application components used by NESO. There are no reasonable alternative suppliers capable of providing the complete scope required by NESO, and a change of supplier would create significant technical and operational risk to these business-critical applications.
Notice history
3 events · 2 releases on Find a Tender · since 26 Aug 2026- Transparency notice published26 Aug 2026, 17:09 BSTUK5
- Contract award notice published26 Aug 2026, 17:21 BSTUK6
- Contract signature expected8 Sept 2026, 23:59 BSTscheduled
Commercial outcome & contract awards
Published awards, contracts and bid statistics, not a forecast| Awarded to | Value | Date | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unicorn Grid Systems a.s.8 Sept 2026 – 7 Sept 2031 | £1,318,515 | 26 Aug 2026 | Awarded |
Contracting authority & participating public bodies
Bidders & participating suppliers
1 commercial party on the notice- Unicorn Grid Systems a.s.Awarded supplier
Official documents & specifications (2)
Official links; attachments are not copiedNotices published for this procedure
- Contract award notice Contract award notice on Find a Tender
- Transparency notice Transparency notice on Find a Tender