SPIDERS Secure Microgrid Industry Show & Tell Coming Up

Army energy wizard and acting branch chief Harold Sanborn, who's had his hands on SPIDERS since day one, will be there. So will my fellow Zoomie Stuart McCafferty, CEO of GridIntellect, who's been sharing his vast microgrid expertise recently on SmartGridNews.com. I'd also expect engineers from Burns McDonnell, who've been integral to SPIDERS success, to be in attendance.

Here are the basics for you:

It's called, somewhat verbosely: "The Smart Power Infrastructure Demonstration for Energy Reliability and Security (SPIDERS) Joint Capability Technology Demonstration (JCTD) Industry Day"

Date/Time:
22 April 2014, 0800-1330

Location:

Fort Carson McMahon Theater
1517 McDonald Ave
Fort Carson, CO (south side of Colorado Springs)

Official Description:

Hosted by the U.S. Northern Command, JCTD Industry Day will focus on sharing the lessons learned and results of the Phase 2 Operational Demonstration performed at Fort Carson with the public sector and partner agencies.

This event is open to all stakeholders with an interest in the development of secure microgrids, ranging from policy and regulatory bodies and equipment vendors to those tasked with the development of standards and specifications and utilities that will be interconnecting with these microgrids.

Highlights

• SPIDERS Technical Report
• V2G solutions and technical and acquisition evolution from Phase 1
• Microgid Cyber Security: Critical Elements, Requirements and Controls
• Transitioning SPIDERS JCTD to Industry and Military
• Cyber Experimentation Report
• Phase 3 & Future Plans Post-SPIDERS JCTD
• Tours of Ft. Carson Microgrid while under Red Team Cyber Attack

Link for More Info and to Register

http://energy.gov/eere/femp/articles/register-attend-spiders-joint-capability-technology-demonstration-industry-day

Hope you can make it. ab

Operational Base Energy Smarts Finally Emerging - Bigtime

I few weeks ago I posted on "Hybrid Hopes for Greatly Reducing Operational Base Fuel Requirements"

Since then, two more things have come my way.  One was a note from DOD Energy friend and guru Scott Sklar of the DC-based Stella Group, who wrote thusly: 

I asked energy integrator MILSPRAY to bring the unit (mentioned in the post above) to Arlington two weeks ago for the military folks from the different services to 'kick the tires'.  This unit powered the corrosion facility (MCRF) in Quantico, VA from July - October (14 weeks) last year and the fuel savings versus a standard generator was 78.6% (wow), and the the same set-up at 29 Palms, CA. I am beginning to see better-engineered systems that can stand-alone or interact with on-site diesel generators seamlessly.

This is heavy duty news coming from Scott.

Also just received the DOE's Smart and Green Energy (SAGE) for Basecamps final report and it aligns quite nicely with the observations from the previous post. You can read the full document HERE, but just below you'll find the most important bits in summary form.

Hybrid Hopes for Greatly Reducing Operational Base Fuel Requirements

Sounds like a microgrid disguised as a generator.  See what you think:

Today, the U.S. military powers its operating bases with diesel generators that run continuously. The problem is that it’s difficult to match the generating capacity with the actual power load from air conditioners, electronics, and other gear, which fluctuates during the day and in different seasons. And when the demand for power is lower than the generator’s full capacity, the fuel efficiency drops off dramatically and the maintenance increases.

...

Earl Energy’s FlexGen “hybrid generator” is wired to a diesel generator running at full capacity, which is how it's most efficient. When there is excess power, the diesel generator charges the batteries. If the batteries have enough stored energy to meet the demand for electricity, then the generator shuts off. In tests in Afghanistan, the Earl Energy system allowed the generators to run three to six hours a day, compared with around the clock before it was installed, says Doug Moorehead, the CEO of Earl Energy.

Often in stories like these there's a rub.  But if those real-world results from Afghanistan were achieved without any many compromises, then this is clearly a big win in an area we've made almost no progress for decades.  Will be keeping an eye on Moorehead and Earl Energy for sure.

Full IEEE Spectrum article: HERE.

How to Make a Microgrid

I've been reading about, sometimes writing about, and occasionally extolling the many virtues of microgrids for some time now.  I even remember when, shortly after starting this blog, I was at a DOD energy gathering at NDU in 2008 or 2009 I think.

This perky bald guy in the row behind me said, kind of like in the movie The Graduate: "the future is microgrids." I could be wrong, but I believe that hairless wonder was Army O-6 and future DOD Energy Blogger Dan Nolan himself.  (I'll get my fact checker on that just in case.)

Since then we've copiously covered the SPIDERS program, as well as the great secure microgrid work at Naval District Washington.

Flash forward to yesterday when I came across Stuart McCafferty's "Top 6 Things to Consider When Developing Microgrids." The title says 6 but altogether it's more like 50 or 60 questions - born of his hands-on project management experience - you need to answer before moving forward.

Out of all of them the first two resonate the strongest with me:

Mission: What is the organization’s mission? How will a Microgrid help support the mission?

If your reasons for building a microgrid aren't directly related to supporting the mission, then what the heck are you doing?  Everyone's free to build their own microgrid after work on their own dime, but if you're building one at a DOD installation, then the connection to mission support has got to be a solid and not a dotted line.

After that the rest of the questions are about everything you need to think about beforehand to do it right.  For the full article click HERE.

And by the way, here's a piece on an early stage USMC microgrid project at Miramar Air Station in San Diego, where energy assurance is the major mission driver.

Image courtesy of National Defense Magazine

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.

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.

Major SPIDERS Update, Advancing Energy Security & Barbarians at the Gate

This mega post just in from Mr. Harold Sanborn, Program Manager at Construction Engineering Research Lab (CERL), US Army and technical manager for the SPIDERS Joint Capability Technology Demonstration (JCTD).  It's chock full of good news and you'll want to read it top-to-bottom to get the full picture. ab

Starting from the vantage point (30 years of civil service) that "no good idea goes unpunished" allows me the freedom to work complex problems knowing that the threat of doom comes with the territory. Being twisted and enjoying pain keeps me in the zone.

SPIDERS Phase I has finished the "history tour" as we codify and publish the lessons learned. First lesson, see sentence one... Acquisition of both Military Construction and Research and Development on the same contract at a firm fixed price (not a cost plus AFRL contract) isn't done every day. The Joint Capability Technology Demonstration (JCTD) guidance for a minimum of Technology Readiness Level 6 as a pre-condition, to accelerate the deployment of technologies, while needing to leave behind a functioning, sustainable and useful real property improvement in energy security, stretches one's mind. Arguably we accomplished what we set out to do.

DOD Energy Security Milestone: Announcing Fort Bliss's New Microgrid

Microgrid research is being conducted at a bunch of DOD installations: Naval District Washington (NDW), the Marines' 29 Palms base in California, Joint Base Pearl-Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii and Fort Carson in Colorado Springs, to name a few.

But Fort Bliss decided it was ready for one of its own, and with a little Federal funding help, decided to get on with it and build one of its own. It's a win on several fronts, including energy security in the event of local or regional black out, so in a time of distress when you most need them, the military (or at least this part of it) will be up, running, and ready to respond.

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:

(Not Just) Another Conference Alert: Military Microgrids

Dan attended this conference last year and unsurprisingly came away with a lot to say, HERE. Well, time flies when you're working DOD Energy and having fun so it's one more into the breach my friends.

There's a 5-for-the-price-of-1 bullet sale going on now at Blogger, so the rest of this post will take advantage of that promotion. Good luck:

Details

• When: April 30- May 1, 2013 
• Where: Holiday Inn Rosslyn at Key Bridge, Arlington, VA 22209
• For more info and to register click: HERE
• Point of contact: Marcus W. Min, (310) 320-8128 

Confirmed Speakers: 

• Mr. Tom Hicks, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Energy, Installations and Environment, US Navy 
• Mr. Steven Chalk, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Renewable Energy, EERE/DOE 
• Dr. Jeff Marqusee, Director, DoD Environmental Security Technology Certification Program 
• CAPT Kerry Gilpin, Director, 1 Gigawatt Task Force, US Navy 
• Dr. Tim McCoy, Director, Electric Ships, PEO-Ships 
• COL Paul Roege, Chief, Operational Energy Office, US Army
• Mr. Don Juhasz, Director, Energy Resource Management, Defense Logistics Agency
• Mr. Steve Bossart, Senior Energy Analyst, National Energy Technology Lab, DOE 
• Dr. Allen Hefner, Assistant to the National Coordinator for Grid Interoperability, NIST 
• Mr. Stephen Schneider, Vice President and Chief Solutions Architect, SAIC 
• Dr. Charles Chen, Technical Programs Manager, Advanced Concepts, Northrop Grumman 
• Ms. Angela Watmore, Director, Boeing Energy Transmission and Distribution 
• Mr. Dan Nordloh, Executive Vice President, ZBB Energy 
• Mr. Bill Becker, Director, Microgrid Solutions, Spirae 
• Dr. Bala Vinayagam, Director, Smart Grid Products, GE 
• Mr. Deepak Devin, President, Varentec 
• Mr. William Taylor, Solutions Development Leader, Energy and Environment, Honeywell 
• Mr. Richard Hockney, Chief Engineer, Beacon Power 
• Mr. Brian Lenane, Senior Principal, Strategic Initiatives, SRA 
• Mr. Liam Dohn, Project Manager, Smart Grid Division, Siemens