How to find grid and energy tenders on TED
A practical guide to Tenders Electronic Daily, the EU's official tender journal: what is published there, how to search it by CPV code, country and buyer, and how not to miss grid, substation and renewable energy tenders.
If you build, supply or maintain electricity networks in Europe, TED is the first place to look. TED (Tenders Electronic Daily) is the online version of the Supplement to the Official Journal of the European Union. Every public buyer and utility in the EU has to publish its larger tenders there, and anyone can search it for free. This guide explains what you will find on TED, how to search it efficiently, and where to look for the tenders that never reach it.
What is published on TED
EU procurement law requires buyers to advertise contracts on TED when the estimated value is at or above the EU thresholds. For 2026 and 2027 the thresholds for utilities, which include electricity, gas and heat network operators, are €5,404,000 for works and €432,000 for supplies and services. Central government bodies have lower thresholds for supplies and services (€140,000), and regional and local bodies €216,000. Below these values, national rules apply, and the tender usually appears only on a national or regional portal.
For energy bidders, the most important publishers on TED are:
- Transmission and distribution system operators buying substations, overhead lines, cables, transformers, switchgear, meters and maintenance services.
- Municipal utilities and energy companies buying network extensions, district heating, street lighting and connections.
- Public authorities buying solar plants, battery storage, EV charging, energy efficiency works and energy supply contracts.
Buyers from the European Economic Area countries Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein also publish on TED, and so do many Swiss buyers, including the Swiss grid operator Swissgrid. The United Kingdom left the system: UK public buyers publish on the UK's Find a Tender service instead.
The notice types that matter
The standard eForms have been mandatory for new notices since 25 October 2023. You will mainly meet these types:
| Notice | What it tells you | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Prior information notice (periodic indicative notice for utilities) | A buyer plans to tender. For restricted and negotiated procedures, utilities (and regional or local authorities) can also use it as the call for competition itself, asking interested companies to come forward. | Note the buyer and date. If it invites expressions of interest, answer it, or you may not be invited later. |
| Contract notice | The actual call for tenders or for requests to participate. | Download the documents and check the deadlines at once. |
| Notice on the existence of a qualification system | A utility runs a standing list of qualified suppliers. Later contracts are awarded among the qualified companies without a new call for competition; you only see an award notice afterwards. | Apply to join. Being on the list is often the only way to take part in those contracts. |
| Contract award notice | Who won, often with the contract value and the number of bids received. | Use it to learn prices, competitors and how often a buyer tenders. |
| Modification notice | An existing contract was changed or extended. Only some kinds of change have to be published. | Shows where framework agreements are being stretched rather than re-tendered. |
How to search TED efficiently
1. Search by CPV code first
Notices are written in the buyer's language, but every notice carries CPV codes, which are the same in every language. A search for code 45231400 (construction work for electricity power lines) finds German, Polish and Spanish tenders alike, and on TED a search for a code also finds the more specific codes below it. Our guide to CPV codes for energy and grid work lists the codes worth watching. Buyers sometimes pick a broad code such as 45000000 (construction work), so combine the code search with a keyword search rather than relying on one method.
2. Narrow by place and buyer
Filter by country, or by region using the place of performance, and save a separate search for each grid operator you want to work for. Following a buyer rather than a topic is often the best way to catch unusual tenders, such as a substation contract filed under a building code.
3. Use keywords in the local language
Titles and descriptions are rarely translated well. These are terms that buyers actually use in their notices:
| Language | Substation | Transformer | Overhead line | Switchgear |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| German | Umspannwerk, Trafostation | Transformator | Freileitung | Schaltanlage |
| French | poste électrique, poste source, poste de transformation | transformateur | ligne aérienne | appareillage, cellules HTA |
| Spanish | subestación, centro de transformación | transformador | línea aérea | aparamenta, celdas |
| Italian | sottostazione, stazione elettrica, cabina primaria, cabina secondaria | trasformatore | linea aerea, elettrodotto | quadri elettrici, quadri MT |
| Polish | stacja elektroenergetyczna, stacja transformatorowa, GPZ | transformator | linia napowietrzna | rozdzielnica |
| Dutch | onderstation, hoogspanningsstation | transformator | hoogspanningslijn | schakelapparatuur |
| Swedish | transformatorstation, nätstation | transformator | kraftledning, luftledning | ställverk |
| Finnish | sähköasema, muuntamo | muuntaja | voimajohto, ilmajohto | kojeisto |
4. Save your searches
With a free account you can save searches on TED and get email alerts for new matching notices. Keep a small number of precise searches rather than one huge one: a daily list of five relevant notices gets read, a list of two hundred does not. Developers can also query TED through its free search API.
Reading a notice found on TED
The TED notice gives the key facts. The tender documents, the questions and answers, and the submission itself are on the procurement platform named in the notice. Buyers must give free and direct access to the documents, but you usually need to register on the platform to ask questions, receive the answers sent to all bidders and submit your tender, so register as soon as a tender looks interesting. Check three things straight away:
- The deadline and its time zone. Deadlines are strict, and portals close to the minute.
- The deadline for questions. It is often one or two weeks before the submission date, and it is the last chance to fix an unclear specification.
- Whether it is a one-stage or two-stage procedure. In restricted and negotiated procedures you first apply to be selected, and only the selected companies receive the invitation to tender.
Our checklist on how to read a tender notice goes through the rest.
Tenders that never reach TED
Smaller contracts, work for private developers and many framework call-offs are not published on TED. To cover them, add the national portals of the countries you work in, for example:
- France: BOAMP, the official bulletin of public procurement notices.
- Spain: the Plataforma de Contratación del Sector Público.
- Netherlands: TenderNed.
- Ireland: eTenders.
- Finland: Hilma.
- Poland: the e-Zamówienia platform.
- Germany: the federal Bekanntmachungsservice at oeffentlichevergabe.de collects notices from federal, state and municipal buyers, including many below the EU thresholds. The documents and the submission, however, are spread over many different platforms.
Remember the qualification systems described above as well: contracts awarded among qualified suppliers are not advertised, and you only see them in award notices after the fact.
A simple weekly routine
- Run your saved TED searches and the national portals you follow, or let a tool collect them for you.
- Open every new notice from your target buyers, even if the title looks unrelated.
- Make a quick bid or no-bid decision within a few days, while there is still time to ask questions and get supplier quotes.
- Read the award notices for tenders you did not win or did not bid for. They show who wins, at what price, and how many companies competed.