Friday, October 28, 2011

Reducing the Obstacles to DOD Energy Goals

My handsome younger brother, Jon Gensler, combat veteran, former tank and mortar platoon leader, and current energy entrepreneur weighs in on speed in energy goal attainment by DOD. Given Solyndra and recent DOD IG reports to the contrary, Gensler argues that speed in government energy efforts are necessary for the country. Project velocity ( the speed at which you can push, pull, or coerce a large scale project through contracting, design, negotiations, procurement and the various other hurdles that underpin any large scale opportunity) can be accelerated through breeching or by passing the obstacles presented by site procurement interpretation, decision maker inertia, Power Purchase Agreements (PPA) complexity.

For a guy with a meager education, (USMA, MIT, Harvard) he makes good points. Recommended reading for anyone in the industry AND Government. Especially Government. The Army is attempting to address these with the EITF which is sponsoring a three hour meeting next week in DC. This will be an opportunity to ask new TF Executive Director, John Lushetsky, former DAS Energy Efficiency and Solar Program Manager at DOE, questions based on Gensler’s article.

One of my scouts was attending FUPWG this week in Philly. Early reports indicate that there is still some disagreement on long term PPAs among the Services. Would be useful to have a definitive statement from Dorothy Robyn, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense Installations & Environment on the issue. Please sort out U.S. Code 2922A, Madam Secretary, and I won’t ask for anything else for Christmas. Promise. Dan Nolan

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