Responding to a thermal and energy study tender (public & private contracts, EU 2026)

Thermal engineers, energy engineers and thermal-study consultancies are regular bidders for public procurement and structured private clients (social landlords, property funds, local authorities, hospitals, universities). Five families of contracts stand out, all intellectual services billed in person-days.

• Regulatory thermal studies: calculation note under RE2020 (or the equivalent local regulation) on a new build, compliance certificates, renewable-energy feasibility study.
• Energy audits of public estates: energy-performance assessment of a building portfolio (schools, sports halls, town halls, social housing) with costed renovation scenarios.
• Energy master plans: a multi-year decarbonisation and sufficiency strategy for an estate or a territory, with prioritisation of actions.
• Renovation project-management assistance: support on renovation operations, from diagnosis to monitoring of consumption after works.
• Diagnostic frameworks: campaigns of energy-performance certificates, audits or thermal studies across an estate, triggered by successive call-off orders over 1 to 4 years.

Across the EU the logic is identical in all 27 member states: a public operator publishes above the European thresholds on TED, below them on its national platform. An established consultancy may bid for a cross-border contract subject to freedom of establishment and recognition of qualifications.

The first challenge is the price schedule, specific to intellectual services. In thermal studies you do not cost supplies but workload: each line combines a profile (study officer, technician, thermal engineer, project manager) and a number of person-days per project phase (survey, data collection, modelling, simulation, recommendations, report, presentation). The BoQ must aggregate these days by phase and profile, with daily rates, expenses (travel, on-site measurement, instrumentation) and margin. Underestimating an audit's workload leads to an abnormally low bid or a loss-making assignment; overestimating it loses the price score — often 40 to 60% of the overall score.

The second challenge is the technical proposal. The buyer scores technical value on precise criteria: audit methodology (survey protocol, measurement, consumption data collection, instrumentation), use of dynamic thermal simulation, relevance and prioritisation of recommendations, reliability of the savings estimates, team composition and qualification, similar references, deadlines and schedule. A generic proposal copied from one tender to another is penalised: you must answer the consultation rules criterion by criterion and demonstrate an audit methodology genuinely adapted to the estate concerned.

The third challenge is administrative: engineering qualifications (for energy audits, regulatory thermal studies or project management, and study-level energy labels for certain grants), professional insurance, and the ESPD/DUME for EU public procurement. False or expired documents lead to rejection — and even criminal penalties for false statements.

The assistant starts from the tender: you upload the tender file (PDF), it extracts the buyer, object, estate scope, lots, award criteria and weighting, and the buyer's language. The technical proposal is then structured to develop the most heavily weighted criteria first (audit methodology, thermal simulation, team, references), in the contract's language.

For the price schedule, you enter your profiles and daily rates (study officer, technician, engineer, project manager), then the estimated workload in person-days per project phase and per profile; you add your expenses (travel, on-site surveys, instrumentation) and your margin. The assistant computes each line (days × daily rate excl. VAT), applies VAT and totals, and exports an editable Excel BoQ. No price or workload is invented: a line without entered data is marked "to complete".

• Technical proposal structured around the tender's award criteria (audit methodology, simulation, team).
• Costed BoQ in person-days from your profiles + daily rates (Excel export).
• Pre-filled ESPD/DUME draft for EU public procurement.
• Deliverables in PDF, editable Word and Excel, in the buyer's language.
• Your profiles, rates and methodology templates stay confidential, reusable across tenders.

You stay in control: the assistant produces a solid base that you verify, complete with your real references and sign before submission. It replaces neither your thermal-engineering expertise nor legal advice — it removes the hours of formatting and workload calculation where the risk of error is highest.

A controlled response follows a stable sequence, whether the contract is public or private, in France or elsewhere in the EU.

• Monitoring: spot relevant thermal-study, energy-audit and project-management tenders on the platforms (TED, buyer profiles).
• Tender analysis: object, estate scope, lots, award criteria and weighting, deadlines, required documents.
• Go/no-go decision: technical capacity, similar references, team workload, achievable deadlines.
• Costing: BoQ in person-days per phase and per profile, with daily rates, expenses and margin.
• Technical proposal: answer the criteria item by item, audit methodology, thermal simulation, team, schedule.
• Administrative documents: ESPD/DUME, engineering qualifications, insurance certificates.
• Electronic submission before the deadline, with e-signature where required.

The BoostPro IA assistant handles steps 4 to 6 — the most time-consuming and riskiest — producing proposal, person-day BoQ and DUME in under ten minutes from your real data. You focus your time on strategy (workload calibration, methodological differentiation, references) rather than formatting.