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.

Dr. Geiss Provides Best Definition of Energy Security

Air Force DAS Energy's Kevin Geiss, in a recent panel discussion, made the case for improved and continued partnerships on energy with all of the DOD services.

Along the way, he took a turn at defining the most eternally-difficult-to-define term in our business:

Energy security is having the power when and where you need and in sufficient amounts to do the job and the ability to protect that and recover from any disruption. It's not just having the power but recognizing that there are risks.

If I may use the word zeitgeist here, Geiss is in tune with our current one. In cyber security circles in 2013, when we weren't talking about Snowden and NSA, we were talking about resilience, and that's the special sauce he adds that makes it, in my mind, the strongest, most succinct definition yet.

Knowing that despite best plans and intentions, things are still going to go wrong and orgs need to be ready to respond and recover. And learn.

Article HERE.  And thanks for the hundredth time to OSD's Ollie Fritz (must buy him another beer at Miracle of Science someday).

Sandia and Hayden on Cybersecurity Strategies for Micgrogrids

This DOD-relevant post comes to you courtesy of the good folks at the Smart Grid Security Blog.

First off, thanks to friend and colleague Ernie Hayden for writing a microgrid security post following his mini-immersion in the topic last week. You can read his write-up HERE.

In particular, want you to see something he linked to: SNL's Microgrid Cybersecurity Reference Architecture. That's Sandia National Labs, btw, not Saturday Night Live; talented though he is, Jimmy Fallon is not a contributor to this piece.

Note: the microgrid concept described by Sandia is principally for energy security in DOD use cases, for emergency fall-back scenarios. Not necessarily for improving day-to-day operations or achieving efficiencies or cost savings, though you get some of those as part of this.

An excerpt from the Executive Summary makes that concept clear:

The design of a microgrid control system needs to be more robust than that of a traditional industrial control system (ICS) for the following reasons: 

-- The microgrid is used in emergency situations and may be critical to continuity of operations of an installation

-- The microgrid must function during active attack by a capable adversary.

As such, the traditional design and implementation for an ICS may not be sufficient for implementing a robust and secure microgrid.

Of course, there are an increasing number of non-military microgrid use cases and a burgeoning technology and integration market that supports them. But my guess is all those civilian applications should go to school on how Sandia and the DOD are hardening theirs, and select from among those approaches security that's right for their own risk tolerance objectives.

Department of Veterans' Affairs a Solar Leader by Example

After being introduced by a mutual friend in the energy business, I had the chance to speak with a representative of the VA last week and I came away with such a great impression of this most important of government organizations.

I needn't tell you about the core mission of the VA and the central role it plays in much of what we hold near and dear as Americans: taking care of our bravest, most self-sacrificing citizens who've put themselves at great risk keeping the rest of us safe in an increasingly dangerous world.

But what I didn't know, and couldn't imagine on my own, was the massive scope of VA operations and built infrastructure.  We're talking many thousands of buildings including more hospitals and other health facilities than any other organization in the country.  Or the world.  By a mile.

The VA is doing remarkable things with solar energy, and increasingly, designing contracts that save the department money over time.  You can read more about these efforts here HERE.

I challenge you to spend a few minutes with this interactive map and see if you can find a state or US territory that's not been touched by at least one VA clean-tech project.  I don't think you'll find one.

Way to go, VA.  Keep it up !!!

Photo: Reno VA Medical Center Outpatient Clinic

The Energy Future Starting to Show Up

This is a very short post that may portend something big.  Energy storage has been the Holy Grail for the renewables sector some time now, and likely will continue to be for the foreseeable future. Nevertheless ...

Apparently, a Maryland-based company has teamed to produce the "first renewable energy storage system in the U.S. capable of not only storing generation when the sun's not shining, but also delivering power to the local electric grid."

Brief article is HERE.  And re: operational energy and FOBs ... note how transportable this thing looks.

Happy Halloween DOD: Great Microgrid Primer from the SPIDERS team

DOD's Smart Power Infrastructure Demonstration for Energy Reliability and Security (SPIDERS microgrid program) prime integrator Burns & McDonnell has produced an outstanding white paper for anyone wanting to better understand the why's and how's of microgrids.

Overall it's a great paper, but two parts jumped out at me immediately for their value to decision makers.  Here you go, the first is from a section on mission drivers:

By allowing multiple generation assets to provide power for a common load, microgrids greatly increase both the reliability of power and its efficiency of generation. Typically, the greatest beneficiaries of microgrids are customers with large, mission critical facilities or large power consumers in areas prone to frequent and/or prolonged outages (e.g. hurricane zones). Although facilities like these have utilized on site generation in the past, they are starting to migrate towards microgrids due to the many examples of single generators failing during prolonged outages thereby leaving the entire mission in jeopardy.

Time for a US Oil Change?

Underway replenishment

On the heals of last week's post on China surpassing the US to become the biggest importer, two recent articles ponder oil's place in our world, particularly in light of how it was used as a weapon against the US during the Arab-Israeli War.

The first, Does OPEC Still have the US over a Barrel? brings the events of those days back vividly.  If you're old enough, this will conjure up a scary memory. If you're young enough, this may sound like a Tom Clancy (RIP) novel, but it was far too real for those managing the crisis in 1973:

“I’m sitting at my desk at the Pentagon,” recalls James Schlesinger, then secretary of defense, “and a cable comes in, and it reads: ‘In accordance with the orders of His Majesty, we are obliged to cut off all oil supplies to your 6th Fleet and to your forces in western Europe. Signed [Saudi oil minister] Zaki Yamani.’ ”