The Energy KPP now Crawls, no Running Yet, but Considers Walking

The concept of a key performance parameter (KPP) or metric for Energy goes back to the two DSB Reports on Energy in 2001 and 2008 and by 2009 it made it to the NDAA.

This blogger has been writing about and advocating for measuring energy to better manage energy almost since its inception.  I just searched for "KPP" and found maybe a couple of dozen posts, the first in Oct 2008.

Seemed like it was going to take forever, but I'm happy to announce to readers who haven't gotten the news via other sources that the Energy KPP is most definitely alive and in motion. Consider this guidance excerpt OSD is passing to DOD Services:

Service performs macro analysis early in requirements process considering:

• CONOPS and OMS/MP 

• Refueling assets (force structure) and capacity 

• Frequency of refueling and % assets needed at one time 

• Convoy distances (doctrine) and estimated travel times 

• RED action on BLUE logistics 

• Attrition of refueling assets 

• Security for refueling assets 

Great stuff, right? Imagine the work involved in exploring the threat vectors to blue logistics and the motivation that would give you to get this thinking baked in early.

Here's a link to a one page overview which includes a link to this somewhat jumbled presentation.

Air Force Fusing Operational and Facilities Energy Strategies in 2010

Other than pondering the potential future energy demand impact of a having a squillion UAVs in the air 24/7, you may have noticed the Air Force hasn't had much of a presence on this blog for a while. Well, seems like they've been hunkered down getting their ducks lined up cause now all of a sudden, they've leapt to a DOD-leading position on energy.

When you really think about it, we wouldn't have any CONUS bases if "facilities" were not essential for accomplishing "the mission". Energy actions by DOD orgs not in service of the mission are not sustainable, and we've been picking up multiple signals lately that USAF senior leadership sees integrated, enterprise-wide energy management as integral to the Air Force mission, not just feel-good window dressing.

Setting the Stage: DASD Robyn's Testimony on Energy Role in Mission Assurance
Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Installations & Environment, Dorothy Robyn, had this to say to the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) in February of this year. First, acknowledging the "brittle grid" problem facing bases:

Installation energy management is key to mission assurance. According to the Defense Science Board, DOD’s reliance on a fragile commercial grid to deliver electricity to its installations places the continuity of critical missions at serious and growing risk. Most installations lack the ability to manage their demand for and supply of electrical power and are thus vulnerable to intermittent and/or prolonged power disruption due to natural disasters, cyberattacks and sheer overload of the grid.

... and this calling for moving from a compliance-driven slow march to an empowered mindset of continual improvement targeting real mission assurance actions:

Over the last five years, the Department has steadily reduced energy consumption per square foot at our permanent installations, largely in response to statutory and regulatory goals. While continuing that very positive trend, it is time for us to adapt our approach to installation energy management from one that is primarily focused on compliance to one that is focused on long-term ... mission assurance.

Long term mission assurance - you've got to love that. The Air Force now seems to be moving in that direction.

2010 AF Posture Statement

Here are the most senior seniors in the Department saying what they're going to do. See page 19 of this doc: it doesn't get any more simple or sweeping than this:

The Air Force as an institution will make an "institutional effort to consider energy management in all that we do"].

Back to the mission point, though. And it's that "all we do" is about the mission and the mission only.

2011 USAF Budget

It's always been a reliable axiom that if you want to know what's really going on, follow the money. To that end, you can see energy policy achieving much more prominence in the Air Force's budget documents for the coming year (see pages 67-68). I note this statement in particular:

Energy use in the battlespace drives monetary costs and operational risks; therefore, it is essential to ensure it is appropriately considered from a systems and concept of operations viewpoint.

You'll see it also comes right out and says the AF is making energy-related KPPs and FBCF factors central to how it does business. Saying it is one thing; implementing it is another, but there's no doubt this is encouraging.

The USAF Energy Forum III
All of this goodness will be showcased in USAF's next big energy event, and I've got just two things to say about this forum, coming up fast on May 27 and 28 in DC. First, its strategy of focusing on Major Command (MAJCOM) energy efforts means that while we're still in the early days, energy management is truly being "operationalized". That says a lot of about the effectiveness of the AF's culture change strategy.

Second, as the brochure says, the theme is "Energy as an Operations Enabler." But then note in the list of topics to be covered there is no distinction between operational and non-operational. What's implied, then, is that if it's not about the mission, then it's not something the AF is working on. This may be a subtle point, but to me it speaks volumes about the maturation of USAF's energy policy development. Click here for more info on the Forum including how to register.

Photo Credit: Lance Cheung on Flickr

Lovins on DOD Energy Opportunities in 2010

Rocky Mountain Institute founder Amory Lovins has been in this long game longer than anyone, and much of the credit for DOD's current momentum on energy can be traced directly to his decades-long leadership and perseverance. So it's great news that NDU's Joint Force Quarterly journal has just published his current assessment and recommendations for the Department's energy strategy. (Note: because it's so timely and topical, you'll find it front and center (actually, top and right) on the DOD Energy Blog for the rest of this year.)

Biggest points of emphasis in this piece are deep drill-downs on the two new new strategic vectors (or capabilities) Lovins has been championing for some time time: endurance and resilience. The business case for the first begins early in the article:

Nobody knows how much oil is in the ground: governments, which often do not know or will not transparently reveal what they have, hold about 94 percent of reserves. But DOD, like the United States, has three compelling reasons to get off oil regardless: security, climate, and cost.... DOD’s unnecessarily inefficient use of oil makes it move huge quantities of fuel from purchase to use, imposing high costs in blood, treasure, and combat effectiveness.

Endurance gets you platforms less dependent on oil logistics, freeing soldiers up for offense vs. the defense that massive fuel convoys demand. Greater weighting of resilience, on the other hand, would liberate DOD bases from their current dangerous over-dependence on commercial power in CONUS and overseas. Once broadly implemented via renewables and the smart and micro-grids, it would also reduce our little-discussed vulnerability to trees and rodents:

The US electrical grid ... is very capital-intensive, complex, technologically unforgiving, usually reliable, but inherently brittle. It is responsible for 98–99 percent of U.S. power failures, and occasionally blacking out large areas within seconds—because the grid requires exact synchrony across subcontinental areas and relies on components taking years to build in just a few factories or one (often abroad), and can be interrupted by a lightning bolt, rifle bullet,malicious computer program, untrimmed branch, or errant squirrel.

The title is "DOD's Energy Challenge as Strategic Opportunity" and I highly recommend you read the whole thing here.

QDR 2010 Directly Addresses DOD's Operational and Facilities Energy Issues

I admit it: back in June of 2009 I had my doubts. But the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) is finally out, and energy got its due - approximately one page out of one hundred twenty eight. Not bad, when you consider previous QDRs never considered the topic. Starting on page 84 of the report, I've captured and reprinted the 4 energy specific paragraphs here and will break it down, with the points I consider most important / helpful highlighted in yellow.

First, I like that they take a stab at defining energy security, and when they do it's kept short and sweet:

Energy security for the Department means having assured access to reliable supplies of energy and the ability to protect and deliver sufficient energy to meet operational needs.

There's a lot they leave out that others try to cram in. I say: good job. Re: the definition - just want to make sure we don't spend so much time and energy on the protect and deliver parts that we significantly impair our ability to prosecute war ... or whatever else it is our troops are told to accomplish. The QDR addresses that concern in the next sentence:

Energy efficiency can serve as a force multiplier, because it increases the range and endurance of forces in the field and can reduce the number of combat forces diverted to protect energy supply lines, which are vulnerable to both asymmetric and conventional attacks and disruptions.

... and points out additional benefits to fielding a leaner, meaner force. So how's this goodness going to come about? By baking better energy thinking in right up front the way it's already been told to do by congress, and the way two Defense Science Boards and the GAO have already recommended:

DoD must incorporate geostrategic and operational energy considerations into force planning, requirements development, and acquisition processes. To address these challenges, DoD will fully implement the statutory requirement for the energy efficiency Key Performance Parameter and fully burdened cost of fuel set forth in the 2009 National Defense Authorization Act.

Who's going to make this happen? Why the DOD Energy Boss, of course. The QDR language makes it sound like a fait accompli:

The Department will also investigate alternative concepts for improving operational energy use, including the creation of an innovation fund administered by the new Director of Operational Energy to enable components to compete for funding on projects that advance integrated energy solutions.

Sounds good, but I've got the feeling they're being a little too optimistic on this one. See here.

I like everything in this next two paragraphs, but I'm going to let them ride without comment and just a few highlights:

The Department is increasing its use of renewable energy supplies and reducing energy demand to improve operational effectiveness, reduce greenhouse gas emissions in support of U.S. climate change initiatives, and protect the Department from energy price fluctuations. The Military Departments have invested in noncarbon power sources such as solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass energy at domestic installations and in vehicles powered by alternative fuels, including hybrid power, electricity, hydrogen, and compressed national gas. Solving military challenges—through such innovations as more efficient generators, better batteries, lighter materials, and tactically deployed energy sources—has the potential to yield spin-off technologies that benefit the civilian community as well. DoD will partner with academia, other U.S. agencies, and international partners to research, develop, test, and evaluate new sustainable energy technologies.

Indeed, the following examples demonstrate the broad range of Service energy innovations. By 2016, the Air Force will be postured to cost-competitively acquire 50 percent of its domestic aviation fuel via an alternative fuel blend that is greener than conventional petroleum fuel. Further, Air Force testing and standard-setting in this arena paves the way for the much larger commercial aviation sector to follow. The Army is in the midst of a significant transformation of its fleet of 70,000 non-tactical vehicles (NTVs), including the current deployment of more than 500 hybrids and the acquisition of 4,000 low-speed electric vehicles at domestic installations to help cut fossil fuel usage. The Army is also exploring ways to exploit the opportunities for renewable power generation to support operational needs: for instance, the Rucksack Enhanced Portable Power System (REPPS). The Navy commissioned the USS Makin Island, its first electric-drive surface combatant, and tested an F/A-18 engine on camelina-based biofuel in 2009—two key steps toward the vision of deploying a “green” carrier strike group using biofuel and nuclear power by 2016. The Marine Corps has created an Expeditionary Energy Office to address operational energy risk, and its Energy Assessment Team has identified ways to achieve efficiencies in today’s highly energy-intensive operations in Afghanistan and Iraq in order to reduce logistics and related force protection requirements.

Finally, the last paragraph brings it all home with the intent to address the brittle grid problem.

To address energy security while simultaneously enhancing mission assurance at domestic facilities, the Department is focusing on making them more resilient. U.S. forces at home and abroad rely on support from installations in the United States. DoD will conduct a coordinated energy assessment, prioritize critical assets, and promote investments in energy efficiency to ensure that critical installations are adequately prepared for prolonged outages caused by natural disasters, accidents, or attacks. At the same time, the Department will also take steps to balance energy production and transmission with the requirement to preserve the test and training ranges and the operating areas that are needed to maintain readiness.

They covered all the bases (no pun intended) as far as I'm concerned. There's another two-hundred or more pages of detail I would have like to have seen included on energy, but if they had, given all the other challenges facing the department at this time, it wouldn't be a QDR.

I'll pursue the usual path from this point on: reminding the Department that this is what it's told itself it needs to do on energy matters, and nudging it to move faster when it looks like other challenges, or more likely, mind-numbing bureaucratic inertia, tribal squabbling and/or status quo thinking get in the way of desperately needed progress.

Photo Credit: abnskyshark / Andrew Michael Smith @ Flickr

DOD Energy Blog Interview with Amory Lovins - 5 Part Series (part 2)

Yesterday was about Lovins' advocacy for resilience and endurance as new Key Performance Parameters (KPPs) and their relationship to the Energy Efficiency KPP. Today I'm asking what's up with the latter ... is anybody really using it (see JLTV post) and if he had his druthers, on what types of programs would he recommend using it next. Here's the Q&A:

Question 2) The Army's Joint Lightweight Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) is the only remaining demonstration program for the Energy Efficiency KPP and it looks like the Army's trying to use it ... a least a little bit. That said, do you have any other programs in mind, existing or future, that might be good exemplars for energy-related KPPs?

Lovins: I believe we need to demonstrate energy as a KPP on mobility platforms and electronic systems, in each of the Services, and preferably on the big ACAT I and ACAT 2 programs. So in addition to JLTV, we should look at vehicle mounted, APU-requiring power-intensive electronics like the Cruise Missile Defense Systems – for example, Patriot / MEADS systems and its associated radar systems. Not only should energy as a KPP be added to a ship program, but it should be added to power-intensive ship defense systems like the Ship Self-Defense System managed by NAVSEA's PEO Integrated Warfare System.

What's more, I'd like to see some serious thinking about leap-ahead, rapidly fieldable, super-efficient platforms applied to the Reset opportunity. For example, the blast-bucket light armored ground vehicle described in our 2008 DSB report would seem an apt approach to replacing those HMMVVs, rather than just building more of the same for $85+ billion. Our Task Force recommended rapid development that has not yet occurred. What are we waiting for?

Good stuff, and very good question to close. Apart from the usual bureaucratic inertia, who knows the answer to this? Well?

Next up, Lovins on the current state of another key metric: the Fully Burdened Cost of Fuel (FBCF).

DOD Energy Blog Interview with Amory Lovins - 5 Part Series (part 1)

This past weekend I had the good fortune to go through a little Q&A with perhaps the best informed expert on energy efficiency, energy metrics and the DOD. Based on what I'd heard about his latest thinking on some new factors to value in force structure considerations and the requirements development process, as well as the current state of energy affairs inside the department, I put forth five questions and got five answers. Here's the first exchange:

1) Do you intend Endurance and/or Resilience as more specific replacements for the long-coming Energy Efficiency Key Performance Parameter (KPP)?

Lovins: No. I hope they become new strategic vectors that enter doctrine and drive strategy, organizational structure, training, reward systems, cultures, and behaviors, just as Speed, Stealth, Precision, and Networking have done. An Energy Efficiency KPP, like Fully Burdened Cost of Fuel (FBCF), is an important tool for ensuring that requirements-writing, designs, choices in the tradespace, and procurement align with the Endurance vector. They also support Resilience, since the most "bounce per buck" in ensuring electric-system resilience comes from end-use efficiency, which stretches what resilient supplies can do, makes failures more graceful, and buys time to fix what's broken or to improvise new supplies.

There you have it. Prior to this response, though I'd heard about Endurance and Resilience for over a year, I wasn't sure how they fit (or didn't fit) vis a vis his thinking on the Energy Efficiency KPP. What of that KPP anyway ... how's it doing these days and where might it go? Part 2 takes the conversation in that direction. Stay tuned.

Getting More Granular re: the Fully Burdened Cost of Fuel

Thank you Scott Sklar of the Stella Group for pointing me to Steve Siegel's work. Granted, little's going to happen until the Director of Operational Energy get's named and installed, and all eyes are on the first real test case for FBCF and the energy efficiency KPP: the JLTV. 

But for now, Google for "Steve Siegel" and FBCF and you get a FBCF goldmine, part of which includes documents from the FBCF workshop held at NDU last year. See here.

April 2009 Update from Air Force's Energy Chief

Kevin Billings shared a few minutes today, responding to three status questions I had queued up for him on: 1) the synth fuel initiative, 2) adoption of energy metrics, and 3) the Air Force's take on smart and micro grids. Here, without much embellishment, are his updates:

1) Synthetic Fuels - Certification of USAF's current inventory to run on a 50/50 natural gas-derived fuel/J-P8 blend is on or ahead of schedule. Other details include:

• More focus coming up on bio fuels
• Will down select to 1 or 2 bio fuel blends and begin new engine cert process for them

In short, USAF will be ready for its 2016 goal of using 50% alternative fuels, and is thereby making a market for these fuels. But the big question is: will industry be ready to provide new fuels in sufficient quantities?

2) Energy Metrics - Alas, Billings noted that the Energy Efficiency KPP would have been used extensively in Future/Next Gen Long Range Bomber, which Secretary Gates just recommended for deletion. But he said that USAF's acquisition arm is taking the FBCF and Energy Efficiency KPP very seriously. (I should be able to report more on that in the future.)

3) Air Force Smart / Micro Grids - According to Billings, while still in embryonic stages, new grid technologies and processes are at the forefront of USAF thinking. The primary driver is mitigation of the risk posed by the brittle national grid. The task re the smart grid is to work with utility providers to coordinate and collaborate on bringing smart sensors and other energy management capabilities on base to capture savings. The micro grid concept applies when thinking about bases as power islands, being able to run their own critical mission systems during local or regional blackouts. One of the lead agencies he referenced is the civil engineering team, AFCESA, at Tyndall AFB in Florida.

A detail I especially liked was Billings referring to the towns that host USAF bases as "community partners." He's interested in seeing if, should local blackouts occur, USAF bases could provide surplus power for critical community services. Wouldn't that be something ... something great.

Playing with Power in MOD Hybrid Tactical Vehicles

The DOD Energy Blog has covered on board energy systems work by the US Army's RDECOM TARDEC unit before. Now it appears a sibling org in the UK Ministry of Defense (MOD) is pushing British ground vehicles' energy systems in a similar manner. Both the DOD and the MOD are trying to support an ever increasing bank of electronic gear using higher voltage systems, regenerative breaking and other hybrid approaches to achieve better fuel economy.

Here's the deal:

Armoured Fighting Vehicles (AFVs) and Protected Patrol Vehicles (PPVs) are already power-hungry machines with advanced computer systems and communication equipment, but future battlefield vehicles will be equipped with even more electronics, such as situational-awareness technology, sensors and vehicle cooling systems. All of this will place an increasing burden on existing 28V generating systems.

If you'll allow a comparison, it seems like this development is following the form of highway expansion projects. That is, when you build more lanes to reduce traffic congestion, you often get more cars to fill in the extra lanes and end up back at square one. We may soon have vehicles that can squeeze more work out of a gallon of fuel, and it may be that the savings will not be captured as reduced fuel demand, but rather as support for more powerful and more numerous computers, communications devices and sensors. 

Food for thought: the energy efficiency KPP could be used in more ways than one in systems acquisition.

Real DOD Energy Progress ... or Beating Heads Against Walls?

I love breakthroughs as much as anyone, be they technology or policy based. But while I enjoy exciting evidence of progress, I place an even higher value on realism/pragmatism so we don't fool ourselves. And this is where I often find myself on this blog: shuttling back and forth between enthusiasm (when a bold move is made like last week's announcement of 4,000 electric cars for Army bases) and concern (when the Air Force seems to place all its hopes in the synth fuel basket) to fear, when DOD leaders continue to refuse to acknowledge the most basic new energy concepts: FBCF and EEKPP.

This post is about all three: enthusiam, concern and fear. And as usual, former IEA official Dr. Sohbet Karbuz does a better job of bringing it all together than I do. Like this, from his recent piece in National Defense Magazine:

... the Pentagon does not have a coherent and viable long-term strategy on energy. Its efforts on energy concentrate on three issues: supply oriented (alternative and renewable fuels and nuclear); demand oriented (energy efficiency technology options such as turbine and engine technologies, material and aerodynamic design etc); and cross cutting technologies (conversion of waste to energy). Efficient use and conservation of energy deserves much more emphasis. The Air Force’s efforts to increase the use of flight simulators, modifications to flight routes, efficient cargo loading, more en route fuel stops instead of in-flight refueling, and culture change constitute good examples. Similar efforts should be adopted by the other services.

It's not too long and I recommend reading it all if you get a chance.  BTW, on the eve of the inauguration of President Barack Obama, I found a great image of the Jefferson Memorial. Lincoln's been getting a lot of visibility lately, and for very good reason. But I'm also counting on thinkers and visionaries in the mode of Jefferson to help guide us as we seek exits from the tremendous holes we've dug for ourselves, in energy and many other areas. He seems full of hope and potential; now let's see what Obama can do. With the rest of us helping, of course. With the rest of us helping.

Photo by Trey Ratcliff

Navy Energy Security Quote for Monday

Aided by powerful computers, the best minds of our day can predict neither financial collapse, IEDs nor pirate resurgences a mere 12 months out, yet the "Father of the Nuclear Navy", Rear Admiral Hyman Rickover, saw the energy future quite clearly from his vantage over 60 years ago:

Fossil fuels resemble capital in the bank. A prudent and responsible parent will use his capital sparingly in order to pass on to his children as much as possible of his inheritance. A selfish and irresponsible parent will squander it in riotous living and care not one whit how his offspring will fare.

Hmm, whether the Admiral was thinking about the US in general, or our military in particular, it's obvious that the DOD's energy policy (until just recently) was not unlike the selfish and irresponsible parent. Only with the advent of the fully burdened cost of fuel (FBCF) and the Energy Efficiency KPP (EEKPP) do we see a glimmer of a responsible impulse re: energy management. And it remains to be seen whether these more responsible, forward looking thoughts will translate into responsible, energy-security enhancing actions. 

Here's Rickover's longer statement from 1957 from which the excerpt was taken. Thanks to the Honorable David Chu, Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, for citing Rickover during his presentation at last week's Moorer Military Energy Security Forum at NDU.

National Defense President Nails It

Lawrence Farrell has written on energy before, but never better than just now in the December edition of National Defense Magazine. Farrell, a former 3 star USAF general (a Zoomie, I might add) and President of NDIA's National Defense, makes a powerful and succinct case that the DOD needs to get off oil post haste. And not just because some of it comes from messed up or outright hostile countries, meaning it's unreliable and purchase of it funds corrupt regimes and terror networks. 

No, all of those solid reasons have never been nearly enough to change DOD behavior. Farrell begins, "When it comes to military energy priorities, we must get beyond the traditional cost-benefit analysis that inevitably is tied to the price of oil." He points out that insulating tents yields huge financial savings, but follows that with the fact that it also takes 13 tanker trucks off the road every day. See, it's not the oil money, it's the logistical burden inherent in reliance on oil that's the killer, literally and figuratively. According to Farrell, 

Seventy percent of the convoys in Iraq and Afghanistan are for fuel and water. These convoys are at risk from roadside bombs and snipers. Just moving fuel entails great danger to US troops.... If we could cut the amount of convoys in half, the logistics tail would be significantly reduced. The result would be drastic improvements in the ratio of shooters-to-support personnel.  

You hear that Hoss? More teeth, less tail. As it turns out, in-theatre DOD energy security is largely independent of where oil comes from or how much it costs per barrel on any given day. Farrell concludes:

The problem with [current DOD energy strategy] is that it dictates a halt in the development of alternative technologies as soon as the price of oil falls.... This inevitable knee-jerk response to [oil price fluctuations] has got to go.

I'll keep beating my drum. This is why rapid departmental adoption of the Energy Efficiency Key Performance Parameter (KPP) is a must. Related to (but untethered from) life cycle expenditures, it better accounts for the most important costs of future systems and forces.

Iraq supply convoy photo: Army.mil @ Flickr