Friday, October 4, 2013

And Now for Something Completely Different: Navy Energy Follies


The DOD Energy Blog is loaded with posts documenting many cases of USN's forward-thinking energy savings strategies and actions. Now it's time to be fair and balanced. The stories you are about to hear are true (I'm pretty sure).  Some of the names have been changed to protect the innocent. The sources of these anecdotes are in the witness protection program.

The Commander Navy Installations Command (CNIC) has implemented an energy savings policy that rewards program managers to implement game-changing energy conservation measures like:
  • No charging of phones or other PDA’s is allowed in work spaces. (Where outdoor outlets are available, you can charge devices during smoke breaks)
  • Only one coffee pot per building (depending on building size, this could cause catastrophic crew and other employee readiness failures)
  • No air conditioning until it reaches 75F + in the barbershop (resulting in sweaty heads that reduce buzzer and clipper effectiveness)
With these changes in full effect, US and DOD energy autonomy is clearly within reach. Ahem.


Meanwhile, maintenance lapses have allegedly produced highly sub-optimal situations like this:
  • Navy Operational Support Center (NOSC) Catsup's heating system is full on during the winter (5+ years now), requiring the outside doors to be open with large fans blowing in cold air to cool the room. (No wonder ice bergs are melting)
  • There are no low flow shower heads on various Navy Gateway Inns (BOQ’s) / Recreational facility showers. (They're still waiting for DARPA and ONR and to clear the technology)
  • Fan Coil units in some Navy Gateway Inns are manually controlled and operate 24/7 for cooling/heating (if not shut off by occupants, non-occupants or spectral beings)

If any readers know better, or know more, I'll be happy to revise this post or draft a followup. We now return to the normally uplifting DOD Energy Blog, in progress since 2008.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Welcome Back James Carter.....

Charles Kirkland said...

That was a well articulated article. Thanks for the post.

Anonymous said...

Is the policy available for review?

Anonymous said...

Stupid and amusing but far more serious is the imposition of complex systems to chase LEED points without ensuring that resources for O&M at the activity level won't find it easier and far less burdensome to just shutoff and bypass features, especially those that fail back to a simpler backup system (think solar DHW and rainwater recovery) without absolutey no impact on mission and energy cost increases that would be hard to detect.

Anonymous said...

"... WITH absolutely no impact..." not "without"

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