DOD Energy must learn from DSB report on cybersecurity strengths (and weaknesses)

DOD Energy Blog readers - I try not to do this too often, but when the content of the Smart Grid Security Blog is particularly relevant, we sometimes to a twofer.  That is publishing the same post on both blogs, albeit with slightly different titles. As you know from recent posts on the great secure smart and microgrid work going on at Naval District Washington (NDW), through the SPIDERS program, and elsewhere, much of a good portion of DOD energy security is rooted in cybersecurity. As such, I think this post and the report it references are particularly relevant to our cause.  Here you go:

Last year the US DoD released a report by one of its Defense Science Board teams and I've seen it referenced a number of times in recent weeks, especially in articles announcing our loss of the most sensitive systems design details on dozens of current and next generation weapons systems.

A Motion for Better Utility Bill Content

Sorry if I confused you with School House Rock Bill, but he's a personal favorite, and I plug him whenever I can. And I'm not referring to one of the myriad energy bills coursing through ... or foundering on the rocks of the Hill these days.

No. Rather, with thanks to Mike Aimone, we've got this electric sector news for you.

This is low tech tech, easy-to-do stuff: the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE) has just put out a report saying that your bill, your monthly electric utility bill that is, could do much more than it probably does today.

In particular, the ACEEE contents that 3 key (and relatively easeee to implement) elements could do a lot to improve consumer usage patterns:

• pro-efficiency messaging
• educational tips and contacts
• peer comparisons

On behalf of service members living on and off base, CONUS DOD installations could and I'd say should lobby their local utilities to make these updates. A longer summary page and the full report is available HERE. Andy Bochman

Image credit: Central Washington University

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.

Conservation Voltage Regulation Could Lighten the Grid's Load

Sometimes good info comes via circuitous routes. From Congressman Bartlett's office and DOD work in Hawaii, via friends at the DC Energy Consensus, please allow me to introduce Seattle-based MicroPlanet. Their Smart Grid technology reduces the amount of voltage required across the grid by reducing voltage requirements at the point of use.

Of course, the DOD needs to follow through on its own recommendations to better secure itself against the risk of grid failure, but anything that can be done to solve the problem on the other side, by reducing grid wear, tear ... and waste, has to be a welcome addition.  

Note: while MicroPlanet has done preliminary testing with the Army and the Marines, this is an early stage company still burning equity investment cash to support development work. But its technology sure seems promising ... stay tuned.

Smart Grid 2.0

This may be more than you want to know about what's being done to bring our electrical grid out of the stone age, but I'm optimistic that some will give it a shot. Rob Day at @Ventures and Greentech Media lays out the current and evolving state of grid automation tech on the demand and supply sides. Will these developments make DOD bases' dependency on the brittle grid less of a problem in the short term? No. The mid term, then? I don't think so. 

But when enough glitches occur to generate some some serious money and national will, thanks to Day and some of the co's he calls out, it appears the technology will be more than ready to re-build it right. So DOD, keep one eye on developments that could make the grid more reliable in the future, but please keep the pedal to the metal on the NDAA 2009, Section 335 "Mitigation of Power Outage Risks for DOD Facilities and Activities" activities just getting started (see post from earlier this week).  

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

A 2nd Energy Security Gem in NDAA 2009

As called out in the DSB Task Force Report on Energy Feb 2008, and discussed on the DOD Energy Blog several times already including here, DOD bases' near total reliance on the electrical grid has been considered a major vulnerability for years. Only problem: leadership has done almost nothing to address it ... until now.

The just-signed NDAA 2009 has a Section 335 titled "Mitigation of Power Outage Risks for DOD Facilities and Activities." Here's a part of the language:

The Secretary of Defense shall conduct a comprehensive technical and operational risk assessment of the risks posed to mission critical installations, facilities, and activitiesof the Department of Defense by extended power outages resulting from failure of the commercial electricity supply or grid and related infrastructure.

And it goes on to say SECDEF will then try to figure out ways to mitigate (i.e., deal with) the risks ID'd above in a prioritized manner. As I said at the end of yesterday's post on the Fully Burdened Cost of Fuel (FBCF), I'll be taking an action item to track DOD's progress in making good on this pledge. 

DOD sure does have a lot on its energy plate these days. But that's a heck of a lot better than just a few years ago, when strategic energy issues weren't even on the menu.

Elegant HVAC Retrofit Solution Could Save Bases and FOBs Tons of Energy

Here's a new company - PaceControls - I recently spoke with who have something DOD could use to save 10 - 25% on heating and cooling bills across the board. And yet they haven't spent much time approaching the military with their solutions because trying to find the right DOD doors to knock on can be a harrowing experience, especially when there are other more accessible clients. Candidate programs that come to mind are the Army RDECOM's HI-Power, OSD & JFCOM's STAR-TIDES, and every DOD base charged with reducing its energy consumption each year (uh, that would be all of them). 

DOE and Zero Energy Buildings (ZEBs) Awards

Per January 2007's Executive Order 13423, every DOD base is under the gun for reducing its energy costs every year to reach a 30% reduction by 2015. This Ars Technica article describes recent DOE NREL awards for companies making big strides to reach ZEB standards as soon as possible. Solar is called out, and one technology that isn't (urban or building-mounted wind energy) is covered by my friend builder Chris here. Using just the Army's structures for example, if the efficiency of its 50,000 housing units and nearly 1 billion square feet of buildings could be improved just a little, you'd be talking humungous cost savings. 

Army Energy Scope Snapshot

Note: slide above lists recent the massive responsibilities related to running Army installations and does not include vehicles or the fuel to power them, including tanks, APCs, trucks, humvees, helicopters, planes, etc.  Consider full energy security and cost issues and its staggering. Not something a few hundred turbines and solar panels are going to put a dent in anytime soon ... but you've got to start somewhere.  Go here for current Army Energy page, and look to link on right for excellent article on "culture change" requirements by Mr. Don Juhasz from the Office of the Assistant Army Chief of Staff for Installation Management.

Geothermal Power for DOD Grid Skipping

Normally I keep my blogging worlds separate, but the minute I published a recent post on geothermal energy for the Discovery-Powrtalk site, I knew it was a promising application for DOD and I'd want to mention here at the DOD Energy Blog.

To recap 2008 DOD power challenges most simply, one can say there are two major problems, each that brings substantial mission risk: (1) the enormous amount of fossil fuel required to operate mobility systems like planes, tactical vehicles, ships, etc., and (2) the precariously vulnerable position most bases and installations are in due to their near-total dependency on the grid for their electricity requirements. The brittleness of the grid is well documented, and its susceptibility to natural and man-made outages (think: sabotage) is well documented.

This post is about a possible solution to grid dependency, by giving each base its own local source of continuous power by tapping into an energy source that's below the base. This decentralized approach to power production becomes possible when a more proactive design for extracting geothermal energy is employed, vs. tapping geothermal sites only along fault lines. While there's still some work to be done building out the potential of what the DOE calls Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS), this appears to have real merit, and can work in tandem with other on-base or off-base alternative energy platforms like solar and wind.

Note: some traditional geothermal sites are already deployed in DOD. For an example, see NWC China Lake which has enough capacity to power the entire base. But the advent of EGS designs may make it possible to power many more (if not most) bases and free them from concerns about the national grid.