Resilient energy systems enable the Department’s facilities, weapon systems, and equipment to perform mission-critical functions when the commercial grid and other off-base energy resources are unavailable. Currently, most installations rely on the commercial electrical grid for primary power and building-level diesel generators and uninterruptable power supplies (UPS) for back-up power to serve critical loads. Commercial electric grids can be disrupted by natural hazards, physical attacks, cyberattacks and other events, all of which can impact the supply to electrical power to DoD installations.
Energy resilience can be enhanced in a variety of ways, including through implementation of technology, policies, training, and planning. The Department is working to improve energy resilience through each of these activities and by leveraging data to inform decisions and identify priority opportunities. Improving the resilience of our energy systems is a continuous process that starts with mission owners identifying requirements, then infrastructure stakeholders developing solutions that consider natural and manmade hazards that impose risk to the system, and the process repeats as requirements and conditions change. Through Executive Order 14057, the White House has issued new requirements for carbon emissions reductions that will have an impact on the Department’s energy systems. In particular, it is expected that a large portion of the non-tactical vehicle fleet will transition to battery-electric vehicles to meet the requirement of achieving 100% zero-emission vehicle acquisitions by 2035. This will undoubtedly increase the demand for electricity both within our installations and on the commercial grid more broadly. Additionally, many of the non-tactical vehicles play a vital role in operations within the installation and will need a reliable source of energy to recharge during an extended grid outage.
All of these requirements, old and new, require solutions that are highly reliable, resilient to various natural and manmade threats and are sensitive to the competing demands on the Department’s budget. New technologies, improvements to design and operations of our energy systems, better planning tools that leverage more or better data, more effective training and other solutions are needed to continuously improve the resilience of our energy systems that enable our military capability.