Navy Connects to Achieve Physical, Cyber and Energy Security at Naval District Washington

I posted on this NDW effort earlier this year, but now it appears they have accomplished a rather remarkable trifecta. By leveraging an already accredited (secure) command and control network, it appears the Navy NDW folks have achieved improved physical security capabilities, enhanced energy security through Smart, microgrid, and building management functions, and cybersecurity that has passed the scrutiny of the Common Criteria process for vetting the security robustness of important systems.

This is the first Navy site to complete the certification and accreditation process using a full enterprise approach. Here's how Richard Robishaw, regional operations director, puts it:

AIETF Big Reveal is Big Deal: Don't Forget the Gators

Ok, this is a long one, so get another cup of coffee and get comfy.

Yesterday, on the banks of the Potomac, the Army fell in at the Navy Yard in D.C. to unveil their plan to expediting large, renewable projects energy projects in and around their post, camps and stations. Some 250 companies sent over 300 people (not each!) to hear the hopeful news. In the impressive Admiral Gooding Conference center, with video screen every seven inches, the Army did not disappoint.

The White House sent Nancy Sutely, the Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality threw out the first pitch with a few softballs about DoD energy use, President Obama’s Executive Order on Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy, and Economic Performance and Fort Irwin Soldiers deploying with foam tents (???). The fact that she was citing an EO issued over two years ago was a sad reflection on the fact that we lack a national energy policy. That the White House was there was impressive; their message was not.

Ms. Sutely was followed by Katherine Hammack, ASA, IE&E. Ms. Hammack had a multi-media presentation highlighting the progress the Army has made in Astro Turf ® and waterless urinals in the desert. While I poke fun, the video is worth seeing and will be available on line some where I am sure. The real point of her presentation was to introduce the team and the plan for the Army’s Energy Initiative Task Force. It kicked off with a video of the Secretary of the Army, the Honorable John McHugh announcing the EITF at GovEnergy in August. The first few seconds of that video lauds Ms. Hammack’s leadership and she was obviously uncomfortable with that, but then segued in to the announcement itself. In the announcement McHugh said the TF would be operational by 15 September and it was. Hammack then turned it over to Jon Powers, the fresh-faced Director of Outreach for the TF, who was MC’ing the affair and she Ms. Sutely and beat a hasty retreat. Always someplace else to be!

Next up was Richard Kidd, DASA, E&S. Mr. Kidd was sporting a walking cast acquired in a touch football injury administered by his seven year old son. As adorable as that is, if you don’t learn to stiff arm, bad things happen. DASA Kidd recognized the commitment of industry to this effort. By his calculation, given the number of folks in the room and typical Washington billing hours, industry plunked down about $180K in opportunity costs to be there that day. He also recognized that in order to attract the $7.1 billion in investment necessary to achieve the aggressive goal of 25% renewable energy consumption by 2025, the Army was going to have to behave differently.

In the good ole’ days, the Army issued an RFP, selected a vendor and paid for whatever commodity or services was required. For this effort, the Army must attract industry and entice them to invest in programs that will “Secure Army installations with energy that is clean, reliable and affordable”. This is the stated vision of the TF and it is telling. I know what word parsing goes on in “vision casting“ sessions, but word order matter. It would seem that energy security and mission accomplishment (reliability) is more important than affordability which clearly trumps clean. More to follow on this. Mr. Kidd then introduced John Lushetsky, the new Executive Director of the TF.

Mr. Lushetsky, a DOE alum like Kidd, brings impressive credentials to the job. With only three years’ experience in Federal government, he may be in for a bit of a shock facing the Army bureaucracy, but his much greater experience with industry and multiple business and engineering degrees he might be the right guy for the job. Lushetsky introduced the rest of his team: Kathy Ahsing, Planning; Al King, Execution and Jon Powers, Outreach (Strat Comms). They also have a detailed lawyer from the office of General Council to make sure they color inside the lines. The well-coiffed, Stan Lee (ok, a little jealous) from the Corps of Engineers rounds out the team. Why COE? Because that is where the plan comes in.

The TF plans to let an RFP in early 2012, fronted by the Huntsville office of the COE. In the Source Sought released in June the Corps said, “The U.S. Army Engineering and Support Center in Huntsville (CEHNC), Alabama intends to solicit and award multiple, indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity (ID/IQ) contracts for use in competing and awarding Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) task orders”. The RFP will be for a Multiple Award Task Order Contracting (MATOC) for power purchase agreements supported by enhanced use leases. The goal is to award that contract by early 2013 and then go after twenty three, currently identified projects almost nationwide. The southeastern United States is notably absent in the gang of 23, with only Fort Bragg as the token representative. You wonder if that is a function of local utility requirements or no good ideas. The utilities will play an enormous role in this effort.

The indication that the Army gets this is a new game and that they must now attract investment vice pay the bills was the announcement of the intent to lift some of the burden of NEPA. The National Environmental Policy Act makes federal agencies integrate environmental impacts into their decision about proposed actions. The Environmental Impact Statement is a painful, but responsible process. If you build outside the gate, the State may not require the EIS; the Federal government does. The EITF proposes to use the Army Environmental Command to conduct do the EIS, relieve industry of this time and cost burden. Good luck, Colonel Kimmell. His boss, MG Al Aycock was in attendance, but did not speak. Clearly, IMCOM is on board. That is a big deal.

One of the tidbits tossed out was that the Army intends to keep some of the RECs. This will allow the Army to take credit, literally, for consuming RE, but could affect the ability to get financing. We will wait and see the impact of this.

The finale was a marathon question and answer session. One of the things the TF has figured out is that communications will be the key to success. After engaging about forty minutes of questioning from the throng, Power announced that the TF will soon have a link on their site to allow industry to set up appointments to visit the team and share ideas. As painful and tedious as this might be for the folks tasked to take these meetings, no one can complain about not having access. This is right out of the Information Operations handbook. I wonder what Redleg came up with the idea?

So now we will be able to access ESPCs and UESC for energy conservation (and some RE), the MATOC for large (10MW or greater) for renewable energy. RFP in early 12, award in early 13, then off to the races. So where is the gap?

The gap is in true energy security provided by smart grid technology. Conserving energy is hugely important; that is always the first step. RE is laudable, achievable and a terrific goal. That being said, unless there is a capacity to store intermittent energy, to decouple load from source and to provide the physical/cyber security necessary in a local distribution system, you do not have energy security. If the local utility can switch off the power generation, there is no energy security. When asked about this, Mr. Kidd indicated that it was not part of the EITF charter. I respectfully suggest they rethink that charter.

It will be difficult, but not impossible, to get third party financing for secure distribution systems alone. The choices are to incorporate them into these large RE projects or get funding to install them separately. The meager ECIP budget (about $135M in FY2012 Budget) can put a dent in the need, but cannot begin to address energy security. It is important to remember that EITF is there to drain the swamp (energy security), something a Gator like Mr. Lushetsky should understand. More to follow as it develops. Great start, Army!

Also want to welcome Andy back. His technical expertise and balance approach will be a welcome counter point to my ravings. Glad to be collaborating again! Dan Nolan

From Position Improvement to Energy Security: The Road to the Smart Microgrid

For those who have been tracking the Smart Power Infrastructure Demonstration for Energy Reliability and Security (SPIDERS) Joint Concept Technology Demonstration (JCTD) it has been an interesting trajectory. It started out as a very ambitious smart microgrid (or Energy Surety Microgrid as Sandia Labs, the designer, calls it) project, envisioning two simultaneous demonstrations of the technology at Hickman AFB, Hawaii and Fort Carson, Colorado. The original solicitation came out on 10 August 2011, for a firm, fixed price, best value contract for both locations, with site visits on 25 August at both locations, simultaneously. On 30 August 2011, amendment 5 to the solicitation was issued deleting the Fort Carson portion of the project. Presumably, that will be addressed in a later solicitation.

This project, in two phases, is estimated to cost $5.2M with a small business goal of 50% of the overall project cost and a period of performance of eighteen months. Although this seems like a lot of work for a big firm with only $2.6M in the return, this will be about getting there “firstest with the mostest”. The company that wins this will have a leg up on what is expected to be a $5B market.

DOD has some specified tasks it must accomplish. We have listed them before: buy biofuels, reduce energy consumption, and consume more renewable energy. In the case of installation energy, there are a number of implied tasks:

• Develop systems that will provide the military effective countermeasures to asymmetric vulnerabilities associated with fragile grid conditions and escalating costs while building in mission assurance and energy security for installations 
• Provide improved solutions to energy security and clean energy requirements, enable opportunity pricing and offer cooperative environments where utilities may better service military installation needs. 
• Communications and controls that allow synchronization and load optimization

This is why DOD is, and should be, chasing the smart microgrid. In the words of one DOD senior manager, “Putting DoD as an early adopter of distributed energy management systems enables the military to help shape the standards for energy security, build business case metrics, and facilitates the adoption of alternative and renewable energy generation sources needed to better meet NetZero goals”.

In addition to the R&D effort associated with this JCTD, there are folks putting smart grids on the ground today, and in some pretty tough environments. Project Manager-Mobile Electric Power (PM-MEP) is running the Afghan Microgrid Project or AMP in Camp Sabalu-Harrison. They are receiving forward engineering support from the Research, Development and Engineering Command's Field Assistance in Science and Technology – Center, part of the 401st Army Field Support Brigade.

The team put in a one-megawatt microgrid that can replace up to 20 60-kilowatt TQGs. These Tactical Quiet Generators had been producing more than 1,300 kilowatts of power to meet a demand of less than 400 kilowatts. The situation is not atypical of spot generation in theater and, if this works, could serve as a blueprint for future operations.

Even as these R&D efforts move forward there are efforts to just be smarter in how the Services deploy energy. When units first hit the ground, every facility has its own generator. Over time, the simple process of position improvement dictates that this inefficient method be replace with some sort of mini grid. This is now being done in a significant enough effort to warrant the scrutiny of the NYT. In an article last week, Annie Snider highlighted the efforts of COL Tim Hill and the Army’s operational energy program. The system is basically just “ganging” generators together for greater efficiency, but that is a start.

At last week’s 2011 Washington Energy Summit, Dr. Dorothy Robyn, the Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Installations and Environment said, “(The) microgrid is a triple play. It's a set of self-generated electricity and controls that allow us to operate more efficiently ... in a normal mode but [also to] facilitate the incorporation of solar, wind (and) other forms of renewable energy. And most important, if the grid goes down it will allow us to prioritize and continue to operate activities that are most critical".

It looks like the lessons from the frontline are making it back to the home front. The AMP does not appear to have integrated renewables or storage as part of its construct. Putting those into the mix would seem to be the next logical step in demonstrating the importance of the smart microgrid. From dumb, ganged minigrids to smart microgrids that provide true energy security requires government investment. Third party financing for these efforts will be challenging; tough to make the business case. The technology is mature and the results are a saving in dollars and lives in convoys and ensuring mission accomplishment at installations. Without intelligent power management, renewables are just tinkering at the margins of energy security. Dan Nolan

CNAS Focusing on Smart Grid Security

As you know, it's rare for me to make the same post on both blogs. But rare means infrequent, not never, and so here you go:

The DC-based Center for New American Security (CNAS), host of the excellent Natural Security blog that highlights the security interconnectedness of many different domains, is having a Smart Grid Security week. You'll note their particular interest in critical infrastructure in general, and DOD in particular.

And of course, I warm to this part of their non-alarmist opening statement:

Today, we’re beginning to get a better sense of the ground truth, ever-moving as it is. About a month ago we held a workshop on smart grid tech and cyber security, with a great cross-section of experts. My main takeaways were that there are real cyber threats in considering smart grid deployment, but that there are many USG efforts underway to mitigate and manage the risks. The holes that exist seem to be things like improving coordination within DOD on grid security, ensuring interagency communication, and setting consistent standards for DOD contracts that include smart grid and electric infrastructure work (and hopefully standards more rigorous than for anywhere else).

See announcement HERE. And stay tuned for their follow-on posts ... there are already some new ones today.

Scouts Out! New Intel on DOD Smart Grid

Every now and then the Cavalry Scouts out there come across a great piece of intel and share same. I have a special place in my heart for Cavalrymen. I like to say that I was raised by them, but that I am ok now.

SmartGridNews.com has an excellent piece on DOD efforts on smart grid activities. The key to energy security is the smart grid. Demand reduction is critical and every location has some type of renewable energy potential, but if you do not have the means to optimize the balance between supply and demand, we are back to what John Spiller likes to call the "Swartzkopf method of providing power". The Swartzkopf method goes like this: "Tell me what your peak load is, then I will provide that generation and double if for back up". It is how we get 19Mw of production at Camp Leatherneck to meet a 5MW load (long since fixed). By DOD standards, this is a small contract, but anything that moves the team closer to the goal line is worth doing. The inclusion of a storage systems can help intermittent renewables serve around the clock. The challenge there is getting that stored power back at a reasonable price. The system is also intended to allow recharging of electric vehicles, another key step in fusing the transportation systems with the electrical grid.

Since this is happening at Wheeler Army Airfield, I am assuming this is part of the SPIDERS JCTD. Anyone with better intel, please comment. The article also has a link to a piece that discusses the Installation Test Bed Program, mention here a couple of weeks ago. The $30 million requested in the FY2012 budget for this program appears to have materialized as around $36M after the last CR and Defense Budget was passed. Anyone with better intel, please comment.

In the last couple of posts there have been undefined or ill defined acronyms. Alert readers have commented on those and I have tried to circle back and fix those errors. I will include undefined acronyms at the end of each piece in the future. All of the comments, even the anatomically impossible ones, have been helpful; keep 'em coming! Next week, I will be at the AUSA ILW Installations Symposium and Exposition and will report from there. Dan Nolan

Acronym Soup

• SPIDERS: Smart Power Infrastructure Demonstration for Energy Reliability and Security
• JCTD: Joint Capabilities Technology Demonstation

Navy Vets in Key Energy Security Positions: NERC CISO

This post comes to you via the DOD Energy Blog's sister site, the Smart Grid Security Blog.

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Just so you know, there was a shift in the force recently as Michael Assante stepped down from the CISO position and NERC sought an able replacement. This post (and this NERC announcement) informs you that, happily, the new CISO has been installed and we're back on track.

Good thing too, cause the electricity generating, transmitting (if not yet, distributing) industry is being pulled in two seemingly opposing directions: on one hand, the desire the demonstrate compliance with CIPS 002-009; while on the other, high anxiety that:

• CIPS 010 and 011 are much different than 002-009 (see summary from James Holler here) and unless they're phased in VERY gradually, that means trouble
• The new CIPS are based largely on security control standards like those in NIST SP 800-53 "Recommended Security Controls for Federal Information Systems and Organizations." Again, a whole different enchilada in terms of detail than what's in 002-009
• This will force huge changes (and likely, commensurate new expenses) for utilities trying make the best of limited human resources, time and funds

Maybe there's a loose connection of sorts here. I recall that the SP 800-53 controls are referenced in DOD 8500.x security policies (see DITSCAP and DIACAP). Michael Assante was a Naval intel officer and seems to me he did a great job during his tenure at NERC. Now Mark Weatherford, recently the CISO for the states of California and Colorado, also comes to the office with a solid Navy pedigree. From the NERC announcement on him:

Weatherford began his career as a Naval Cryptologic Officer, where he led the Navy’s Computer Network Defense operations and the Naval Computer Incident Response Team. Weatherford has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Arizona and a master’s degree from the Naval Postgraduate School.

One thing we've seen in our talks with CISOs and other security professionals in the utilities and ISO/RTOs is the prevalence of prior military (though not always Naval) experience, including folks who did crypto and other cyber security related jobs when they were slightly less "seasoned."

Well, as you'll see from Holler's summary, if not your own hands-on experience in the compliance trenches, it may well be a rough ride moving from the relatively light-weight original CIPS, which really just went fully live on 1 Jan of this year, to the industrial strength 010 and 011. I for one am pulling for Mark to do a great job and wish him every success. We all have a job to do, but his is a key role in this.

The View from Early 2010: Massive Energy Changes on the Way

When you watch something closely day to day it's difficult to discern difference. But as anyone who occasionally visits a young niece or nephew knows, those kids are changing rapidly. For some reason, after years of tracking the slow and steady evolution of various energy technologies, I've gotten the feeling over the last few weeks that our relatively static energy sector is in for a major growth spurt.

And for all the great work the DOD Energy community has done trying to help the Department be more proactive with how it manages its energy issues, policy progress will ultimately pale in comparison with the seismic shifts about to hit DOD and the rest of society. You may think this is hyperbole, but ...

I don't think so. While each of these technologies has a boat-load of attendant risk, and that risk comes in multiple flavors (e.g., technological, regulatory, business), all are setting an impressive baseline that's only going to improve and likely accelerate over time.

On top of continuing steady incremental technological improvements in solar, wind, Smart Grid and storage, each of these three categories of systems could dramatically change the energy landscape on its own. Combined, they'd totally remake our approaches to generating, transporting, consuming, and making money from energy:

1. Home power generation (see the Bloom Box)

2. City (and base-sized) power generation (see small nukes)

3. Electric Cars and V2G (see everywhere, including here)

Though we still have a long way to go figuring out how to power aircraft and most tactical vehicles in ways other than JP-8, the implications for rest of DOD are huge. This could be the beginning of the end for the brittle grid problem facing CONUS bases. Also consider the potential for expeditionary energy. Will be tracking it all right here. As we always say, stay tuned!

Latest GAO Report Hits DOD Hard on Grid Reliance

Sometimes it seems like there's just too much on the DOD's plate:

• having to simultaneously kill people and build trust with communities
• with too many risks to track and mitigate, and 
• too many jobs to be done by too few folks ...
• in an increasingly constrained budgetary environment
• and I'm not even going to mention EMP (woops)

Now comes GAO telling Congress and DOD that the Department is asleep at the wheel when it comes to plans and preparation for extended power outages in CONUS and overseas. Here's a couple of excerpts from the summary:

DOD’s most critical assets are vulnerable to disruptions in electrical power supplies, but DOD lacks sufficient information to determine the full extent of the risks and vulnerabilities these assets face. All 34 of these most critical assets require electricity continuously to support their military missions, and 31 of them rely on commercial power grids—which the Defense Science Board Task Force on DOD Energy Strategy has characterized as increasingly fragile and vulnerable—as their primary source of electricity.

and

The 10 Defense Critical Infrastructure Program vulnerability assessments we reviewed did not explicitly consider assets’ vulnerabilities to longer-term (i.e., of up to several weeks’ duration) electrical power disruptions on a mission-specific basis, as DOD has not developed explicit Defense Critical Infrastructure Program benchmarks for assessing electrical power vulnerabilities associated with longer-term electrical power disruptions.

Sounds to me like this necessary work could piggyback nicely with efforts to prepare for and take advantage of new and emerging Smart Grid and microgrid capabilities. Somebody on that?  Hope so.

Navy Shows Smart Grid Leadership

I recently had a chance to speak with Rear Admiral Phil Cullom, who I met at CNA's "Powering America's Defense" report release gathering earlier in the year.

RADM Phil Cullom runs N43, Fleet Readiness and Task Force Energy, works with (and brought into the discussion) RADM Mark Handley whose role is now Commander of 1NCD (1st Naval Construction Division).

Handley, who led the Navy Energy program way back in '96, reminded me that since 1985 up until just recently, the Navy has reduced energy demand at facilities over 30% by hitting the low hanging fruit. Having hit a bit of a wall, with a view to only much higher hanging fruit, Hadley said he views the Smart Grid has the way to take facilities energy demand reduction to the next level, primarily via usage info the Smart Grid will provide.

How'd the Navy go so far so fast in its Smart Grid thinking? Seems like they got a head start when in the year 2000 a San Diego energy price spike drove the local base to aggressively meter over the Web as a solution. Immediately visible where the sources of the highest demands and the facilities manages quickly adapted and dealt with "problem users." Problem solved and by the way, these actions had considerable ROI, the Admirals noted.

So dear reader with facilities responsibilities, I must ask, what are you waiting for?

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Don't Forget the DSB and the Brittle Grid Problem Facing DOD Installations

Eighteen months have now passed since the public release of the DOD energy security bible, otherwise known as the Defense Science Board task force report on energy: "More Tooth, Less Tail"

I submit this post now, following recent energy conferences by the Army and Marines and with a Navy conference underway, to remind readers of how far we have to go with facilities vis a vis the brittle grid problem called out by the task force. Meeting energy efficiency and sustainability mandates is one thing; providing true mission assurance by reducing or eliminating bases' near total reliance on their local electric utilities is quite another. From page 54 on "Managing Risks to Installations":

For various reasons, the grid has far less margin today than in earlier years between capacity and demand. The level of spare parts kept in inventory has declined, and spare parts are often co-located with their operational counterparts putting both at risk from a single act. In some cases, industrial capacity to produce critical spares is extremely limited, available only from overseas sources and very slow and difficult to transport due to physical size.

In many cases, installations have not distinguished between critical and non-critical loads when configuring backup power systems, leaving critical missions competing with non-essential loads for power. The Task Force finds that separating critical from noncritical loads is an important first step toward improving the resilience of critical missions using existing backup sources in the event of commercial power outage. The confluence of these trends, namely increased critical load demand, decreased resilience of commercial power, inadequacy of backup generators, and lack of transformer spares in sufficient numbers to enable quick repair, create an unacceptably high risk to our national security from a long-term interruption of commercial power.

Energy efficiency is an essential demand reduction component and has to continue to be pursued relentlessly. But bringing true microgrid islanding capabilities and mass storage to each DOD facility ... that's the true challenge of the next few years. Let's get on it.

Next post will be on a Marine Corps microgrid pilot at Twentynine Palms.

As Pledged: Two Smart Grid Security Posts from GridWeek

Folks working energy strategy and energy security at OSD and in the Services are getting earful these days about how the Smart Grid (and its smaller cousin, the microgrid) are going to make it easier to integrate renewables into their facilities energy portfolios and help solve the brittle grid to boot.

Last week a colleague of mine and I were at the GridWeek conference in DC, one of the more prominent of the many dozens of Smart Grid-related conferences happening every year and I said we'd share some findings here on the DOD Energy Blog. Well, without further excess verbosity, here they are, visiting from a sister blog, with excerpts:

1) GridWeek Smart Grid Startups and Security

... the great Smart Grid project could fail, or fail to thrive, largely based on its ability to get security reasonably right, and because adoption will be partially determined by industry and public perception of its safety. The finding that young Smart Grid companies, as represented here, have not prioritized security action, versus titling and responsibility, is a concern.

2) Smart Grid Startups and Security: Round 2 from GridWeek

Hyperbole aside, we all know that the Smart Grid is an area of growing and inevitable security risk. If I'm a utility, and as such am a prospective new customer for a startup, and I'm held accountable to the highest security standards by those who regulate me, I'm going to be damned sure that I put prospective vendors through the ringer before bringing their technology in house. And if I'm a startup, while having a qualified security person on my staff is no silver bullet, our guess is they'll be more than worth their salary as the regulators press their security cases and the utilities/customers get more and more savvy about risk.

By the way, as far as I was able to discern, I only found one rep each from DLA and DHS in attendance, with a handful from Lockheed, Northrop and Raytheon. Will be interesting to learn just how many in the Department are tasked with monitoring which way (and how hard) the Smart Grid winds are blowing, and how to position the DOD ship for maximum advantage.

DIACAP a Good Fit for DOD Smart Grid Security?

... and if so, is it being used in the field as DOD rolls out its first few Smart Grid and micro grid pilots, and if so by whom?

The DOD refers to much of cyber security as Information Assurance (IA). And thes primary policy document that instructs the services on which IA controls to implement and how to get their security program right is called the DOD Information Assurance Certification and Accreditation Program, or DIACAP. Here's a short Wikipedia DIACAP summary for you. While great work is being done at NIST and elsewhere right now on Smart Grid security standards, DIACAP seems like a logical starting point for securing Smart Grid devices and systems at DOD facilities.

So far I've received no answers to this question from folks I thought would know in the Department. I've heard security minded folks in the energy industry reference DOD practices as inspiration for some of their cyber security strategies, but have yet to connect the dots. I like to connect dots, so this is a point of frustration.

Storage is the Smart Grid and Renewables Missing Link

... that's according to Rick Bush and Gene Wolf writing recently in Transmission and Distribution World, who note that electricity has characteristics that make it uniquely challenging to manage:

Electricity is the only commodity simultaneously produced and consumed. As such, it requires a very sophisticated real-time, just-in-time balancing act of supply and demand that is dependent on variable end-user demands and the continually changing weather system. Today's electrical grid operates effectively without storage, but it is severely challenged. The grid would be more efficient and reliable if it incorporated cost-effective ways of storing electrical energy.

Even more recently (as in, tonight at MIT) at the opening forum for a new X-Prize in Energy Storage, I gained some additional insight on electricity. Joining the X-Prize foundation's Chair/CEO Peter Diamandis were Internet and computer legend Bob Metcalfe, now of Polaris Ventures, and Hemant Taneja, the hyper-active energy-focused managing partner from VC firm General Catalyst. (All three of these guys it should be noted, are MIT alums. Secret of success must be time logged drinking and thinking at the Muddy Pub.)

Metcalfe likes to use the formation and development of the Internet as a model for the young Smart Grid he calls the Energy Internet, or Enernet (presentation here). Tonight he said something that clicked for me:

The early Internet was completely synchronized and had no storage.

Sometimes the comparison seems a little forced, but usually it's pretty effective. But this point really made the connection almost visceral. We'll see if the X-Prize carrot, on top of other R& D going on everywhere, can help propel the storage-less Smart Grid out of its infancy.

Wait: one more thing! A Energy Storage Summit is coming to DC next month sponsored by IQPC (thanks to Chris Boucher for the heads-up). Details here.

Photo: MIT

USN Moving Out on AMI and Smart Grid

Had a chance to speak with Bill Anderson, the Navy's Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) Project Manager who's leading a worldwide team of over fifty engineers, laying the AMI foundation towards the Navy's future Smart Grid infrastructure. For background on AMI, click here. Anderson described his project as having several phases:

• 2-4 years for building out the AMI infrastructure, then,
• 2-3 years for putting the rest of the Smart Grid components in place

He emphasized that as they seek to enable the "utility of the future," he and his team realize that they are laying the foundation for a "yet to be defined" US Navy Smart Grid. I like that this team openly acknowledges that they don't know enough yet to describe the details of the ultimate system they're building, and that some key challenges, like energy storage, remain to be solved.

On the security side, networks, comm gear and devices are all being held to the same standards the Navy uses for the rest of its IT operations, including the the DOD Information Assurance Certification and Accreditation Process (DIACAP)'s certification and accreditation processes. These standards are DoDI 8510.1 which binds DOD users to the information assurance (IA) controls defined in DoDD 8500.1 and DoDI 8500.2. It would be interesting to see how tuned in the Navy is to the Smart Grid standards work being done by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

Stay tuned as Anderson's team completes its initial AMI pilot at Naval Base Ventura County and the Navy moves out on the program's next steps.

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

In this final installment of the DOD Energy Blog/Amory Lovins mid 2009 interview, we come full circle to one of the two primary findings of the 2008 Defense Science Board (DSB) Task Force report on Energy: that bases put way too much faith in the reliability of the national electrical grid. Especially in times of war or terrorism that targets critical US infrastructure, bases need a Plan B that'll keep them up and running for weeks or months or longer, not the day or two that seems to be the norm at present.

Previous questions in this series have focused on two new energy-related systems traits Lovins has been championing recently: endurance and resilience, primarily from a mobile platform perspective (e.g., planes, tanks and jeeps, ships, etc.). This question takes one of them, resilience, and turns it to the above mentioned challenge of base dependency on the electrical grid, also known as the "brittle grid" problem.

A word of caution. It usually behooves a blogger to keep his work short and accessible, so busy readers can get a quick bite of hopefully helpful info and be back to other tasks in a flash. Well, that will not be the case with this post. Nevertheless, fans and followers of the influential Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) and its outspoken founder will find there's a lot to sink their teeth into on this final part of the series.

Question 5) It seems the Resilience vector promotes traits similar to the benefits often ascribed to micro grids. Is that right? And is Resilience one response to the Brittle Grid problem?

Lovins: Resilience, said our DSB report, "combines efficient energy use with more diverse, dispersed, renewable supply—turning the loss of critical missions from energy supply failures (by accident or malice) from inevitable to near-impossible." I first described the design elements of resilience in Chapter 13 of Brittle Power: Energy Strategy for National Security (a 1982 report to DoD that remains probably the definitive unclassified synthesis on energy-related critical infrastructure. What it predicted, and worse, has now come true. In 1984 I wrote:

These brittle devices [over-centralized energy systems] are supposed to form the backbone of America's energy supplies well into the 21st century—a period likely to bring increasing uncertainty, surprise, unrest, and violence. The U.S. cannot afford vulnerabilities that so alter the balance between large and small groups in society as to erode not only military security but also the freedom and trust that underpin constitutional government.

Here's how I described the design philosophy of resilience back then:

An inherently resilient system, it should include many relatively small, fine-grained elements, dispersed in space, each having a low cost of failure. These substitutable components should be richly interconnected by short, redundant links….Failed components or links should be promptly detected, isolated, and repaired. Components need to be so organized that each element can interconnect with the rest at will but stand alone at need, and that each successive level of function is little affected by failures or substitutions at a subordinate level. Systems should be designed so that any failures are slow and graceful. Components, finally, should be understandable, maintainable, reproducible at a variety of scales, capable of rapid evolution, and societally compatible.

Resilience can be achieved by design with comparable or, often, lower capital and operating cost. (For example, I've done it in my own photovoltaic-powered house: the lights don't flicker when we pull the plug on the grid. nor when we plug back in.) It's now governed by standards like IEEE 1547. In other words, COTS hardware now permits electric resilience at a wide range of scales. 

As DOD Energy Blog readers probably know, the DSB report recommended that at least the 584 CONUS bases eliminate their ~98+% reliance on the brittle power grid, and for their mission continuity, use their power efficiently and produce it onsite in netted islandable microgrids that also serve the surrounding communities where many of their people live. (This was already DoD policy under DoDI 1470.11 sec 5.2.3 but had been ignored.) Pacific Northwest Lab has found that ~90% of bases can do this, often with renewables, and often to economic advantage. A few bases have made a good start, but much more coherent policy and execution are needed.

There you have it: the case Lovins has been making for renewables-augmented Smart and micro grids for 25 years. And here we are today trying to decide if the time is right, and if so, how fast to push versus the thousand other priorities facing DOD and the country at present. Seems to me senior leadership is more attuned to the urgency of energy issues than at any time in the past, with the possible exception of a brief moment during the OPEC oil embargo of the 1973. Lovins learned and retained key lessons from that event and they have informed his work ever since.

The rest of us, less diligent, have taken energy for granted for too long and now the need for change has arrived with a sense of urgency that is surprising to some. Regardless, let's ensure we get off our butts and update our bases' power systems to ensure they are ready to fulfill critical missions for times when we need them most.

Woolsey Advocates Microgrids for Energy Security and Survivability, but is Storage Tech Ready?

This account of a recent appearance by Green Hawk and former CIA Director Jim Woolsey sounds good. His messages about lessening dependence on oil and coal appeal to everyone, except for maybe those whose livelihoods depend on those products.

In this and other blogs I've noted the advantages of microgrids that can be run independently of the larger grid infrastructure when necessary, isolating themselves to keep electrons flowing when their users would otherwise experience brown outs or black outs. For DOD, this would help solve the Defense Science Board (DSB)-identified challenge of bases' reliance on the brittle national grid. For the US, if deployed widely in many if not most communities, it would greatly curtail the threat of large, regional power-loss events.

Here's Woolsey on the topic:

Microgrids, which include their own backup storage systems and generation resources and can island themselves from the grid, enable organizations or homeowners to keep vital services going in the event of grid outages caused by accidents or terrorist activities.

Maybe his words were taken out of context, but it sounds like, according to Woolsey, storage is ready to go for this application. I'd like to hear much more about energy storage systems, high tech (fly wheels, advanced batteries, hydrogen, etc.) and low tech (proven batteries, pumping water up-hill, compressed air, etc.) being ready for prime time microgrid use at scales that matter. Here's the article I'm referencing. What do you think?

Federal Government Smart Grid Security Wake-Up Call

In case you don't know, I started another blog recently, called the Smart Grid Security Blog. I generally try to keep the DOD Energy world separate from the Smart Grid Security world, but as you can imagine, there are undeniable points of intersection.

Here's a post linking to a very well framed recent article by a colleague of mine. It's a great summary of key cyber security issues and actions for Smart Grid initiates. And the strategies it recommends are as applicable to Fed Gov and DOD as they are to all sectors. Think about the security controls being built in (or left out) of new DOD and DOE garrison-level microgrid deployments such as the one discussed here.

Microgrid Proving Ground for DOD Facility Energy Security

This article in earth2tech describes the award of a microgrid demonstration project to GE citing the following faulty rationale:

Military bases are largely in remote locations and have to be prepared for events that could potentially separate them from the greater power grid.

No offense, but it's not grid separation anxiety that's keeping Commanders awake at night, it's the lack of robustness of the grid itself. As the DSB 2008 energy report (and just about everyone else) warned, bases have made themselves far too dependent on the often wobbly grid.

Hopefully this project at the Marine Corp's huge Twentynine Palms installation and others like it herald change by giving bases the capability to become electricity islands when necessary. Here's a write-up on GE's own blog with a little more detail.

Cyber Security Wake-up Call on DOD Facilities Control Systems

For some, the title of this post won't make the connection to DOD energy issues immediately obvious. Well, all I can say is: think about the Smart Grid, the growing melange of old world electric grid systems and cutting edge networking and Web 2.0 software systems.

Then consider the DSB-identified brittle grid challenge to DOD bases: "Critical missions at fixed installations are at unacceptable risk from extended power loss" and the various smart and micro grid solutions being considered to help isolate them via "islanding." See this presentation delivered at the June 2009 Air Force Cyber Security Symposium for a solid intro.

The Smart Grid is a Beast

For those of you catching the occasional flash that something new is coming to your utility bill, here's a nice narrative description that may bring it to life for you. However, as someone who's been looking at all the moving parts of what's called the smart grid, including the security considerations, I can't help but feel it wouldn't be hyperbole to call it the mother of all projects. It's so complicated and requires so many different engineering disciplines it's not even funny. OK, that makes it super interesting too.

For those who are interested in learning more, the Smart Grid News site is a good resource for getting (and keeping) up to speed with the key players and developments.