Improving DoD Energy Resilience

Post date: Apr 6, 2018 5:24:02 PM

Energy resiliency has been a topic of interest to the Department of Defense since the publication of More Fight – Less Fuel[1] in February 2008. Among the report’s many recommendations, two called for immediately developing “islanding” capability for several DoD installations and developing a legislative proposal to make grid reliability a factor in future Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) decisions. At the time of publication, DoD was considering “islanding” installations for up to six months.

Figure 1 Major Outage Restoration Times

Several years ago, I led an engagement that developed a methodology and model to assess energy resilience capabilities for U.S. Army installations for the Construction Engineering Research Laboratory in Champaign, IL. One of the recommendations from that engagement was to develop the capability for energy and water self-sufficiency for 7 days and establish contracts for 30 days of resupply for fuel and other consumables. That recommendation came from an analysis of major electrical outage restoration times. Figure 1 depicts a recreated and updated version of that analysis for select electrical outages through 2017.

Figure 2 DoD Electrical Outages 2012-2015

Figure 2, is an excerpt for the FY 2015 Annual Energy Management Report showing outage duration for DoD installations. Figure 2 shows that DoD outage restorations times are consistent with the electric utility industry. In FY 2015, the average restoration time for all DoD utility outages was 1.4 days, an improvement over FY 2014’s 7.4 days. If one treats an installation as a single customer, assumes each of the 127 FY 2015 reported outages occurred at different installations and uses 513 active installations as a baseline[2]. A conservatively high, worst case, implied DoD System Average Interruption Index (SAIDI) of 500 minutes can be calculated. This is about double the national average SAIDI, (including MED) reported to EIA in 2015 by participating utilities. So clearly there is room for improvement.

Two recent studies, Lincoln Laboratory Technical Report 1216, Application of a Resilience Framework to Military Installations: A Methodology for Energy Resilience Business Case Decisions and Power Begins at Home: Assured Energy for U.S. Military Bases, Noblis and Pew Charitable Trust, both recommend changing the common practice of installing standby electrical generators at individual buildings and developing more robust electrical distribution systems with shared generation. The economics of maintaining a fewer number of larger generators over a larger number of smaller generators should result in lower maintenance costs. Coupled with a well maintained electrical distribution system more facilities will have power available during commercial grid outages. From an installation-wide perspective this approach makes a great deal of sense. From the perspective of a critical mission operator, this approach will result in a slight decrease in electrical reliability. The reason for this is that there are now two components for risk affecting electrical reliability, the generator and the electrical distribution system. If both the larger generator and the electrical distribution system have 99% reliability, the reliability of the combined systems is the product of their respective reliabilities, in this case 98.01%. A critical facility with a well-maintained building specific generator would have the same reliability of as the larger generator, 99%.

If an N+1 capability was developed for the larger generators, e.g. two generators in parallel, the generator reliability increases to 99.99%, but the two generators with the electrical distribution system has a combined reliability of 98.99%.

There is no doubt that any critical mission requiring the use of more than one in a series of backup generators with see an improvement in electrical reliability. But as we found in our previous engagement, the challenge lies in defining the critical mission. The August 2014 version of UFC 3-540-01, Engine Driven Generator Systems for Backup Power Applications, lists facilities that are authorized or required by other guidance to have backup generation capability or connections.

While UFC 3-540-01 is probably not a comprehensive document of backup generator requirements, it reflects a less robust concept of facilities than that required to perform critical missions at most installations. Most of the facilities listed in UFC 3-540-01 are generic and require only one backup generator per facility. Our research found one requirement for N+1 electrical capability for a facility and that is for DoD Core Data Centers.

In our previous engagement, we learned that the installation cannot function without basic processes such as logistics, contracting, wells, wastewater, and work order centers. All these processes depend on electricity. Additionally, DoD spends millions of dollars a year to maintain and use simulators and ranges as part of various training regimes. A three-day power outage can have a serious impact on training schedules if the simulators and ranges are not available.

How can this problem be addressed? The deployment of more stand-alone, building dedicated, backup generators is not cost effective. The development of a more robust electrical distribution system or microgrid with larger shared generators is even more costly.

Perhaps the answer lies in developing partnerships with electric utilities, the Department of Homeland Security, National Guard, and State Governments. Many DoD installations are included in DHS/FEMA and State disaster response plans for use as Incident Support Bases in support of DSCA missions. When FEMA, National Guard or other emergency responders deploy to a DoD base, they typically bring some type of portable generators with them as part of the response package. For those installations that are part of DHS planning efforts, perhaps DHS could support improvements to DoD installation infrastructure. Such an effort would increase the robustness of national preparedness, improve reliability for critical DoD missions, and save total federal dollars. The new administration is pragmatic and looking for ways to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of government. Perhaps this in one area that could successfully support that effort.

The author has significant experience in nuclear power plant emergency preparedness. As a Navy Captain, he was formerly the Navy Emergency Preparedness Liaison Officer for Illinois and Minnesota. He has extensive consulting experience with utility privatization, energy resilience modeling, and federal business process improvement.

[1] More Fight – Less Fuel, February 2008, Defense Science Review Board Task Force on Energy Strategy Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics

[2] FY2015 DoD Base Structure Report, p. DoD-4