You're Invited to DOD "Power Surge" Energy Security Webinar

I have a one-time special good deal for you, DEB aficionados.  You are cordially invited to a briefing announcing the research findings from:

Power Surge: How the Department of Defense Leverages Private Resources to Enhance Energy Security and Save Money on U.S. Military Bases

Date: this Thursday, January 16, 2014
Time: 11 a.m. – 12 p.m. EST
Access: Click here to log into the webinar

Event Overview:

Deployment of clean energy technologies is accelerating across military installations operated by the U.S. Department of Defense, according to The Pew Charitable Trusts. Pew’s new report, “Power Surge,” examines how the military is using private-sector capabilities and harnessing innovative financing to obtain advanced energy systems. These projects are helping the Pentagon enhance mission assurance, save money, and meet congressional and executive branch requirements. The briefing will review the military’s progress on meetings its renewable energy and efficiency goals and how it’s funding the initiatives. The report will be available online starting 16 Jan 2014 at    www.pewtrusts.org/energysecurity.

Presenters:

• Phyllis Cuttino, director, clean energy program, The Pew Charitable Trusts
• Katherine Hammack, assistant secretary for the Army, energy and installations
• Scott Provinse, director of government programs, Sun Edison
• John Warner, former U.S. senator and secretary of the U.S. Navy, and senior adviser to the Pew project on national security, energy, and climate

I'll be online, and hope you can make it too!  ab

BTW, if the direct link does not work, go to www.webex.com and enter:
Meeting Number: 636 286 510, Password: Clean123

RFI Alert: USMC Tactical Energy Generation

We've posted on the great work of the Marines exFOB many times before, and I'm happy to be doing so once again to kick off 2014.

There's an RFI out for submissions on "Tactical Energy Harvesting," but rather than siphoning off watts from dormant humans encased in glass cocoons, the Marines want to leverage a fraction of the energy already generated by able bodied soldiers in motion. And there's another element related to capturing waste heat from generators.

Response due date is 21 February 2014.  I'd expect the good folks down the street from me in Natick to have some ideas up their sleeves on this, but I know there are many other sources for thinking along these lines as well.

For more details on this solicitation click HERE.

Photo credit: Extremetech.com

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.