The U.S. Military and Renewable Energy

By November 12, 2018 Blog No Comments

The United States military is dependent on resilient, sustainable, adequate sources of energy, and according to The Department of Defense (DoD) Annual Energy Management Report, the DoD continues to move towards renewable energy as one of three major Energy Performance Goals, alongside energy efficiency and petroleum consumption, investing in cost-effective renewable and distributed energy solutions. The DoD’s strategy considers not only the cost-effectiveness of renewable and distributed energy solutions, but also the energy resilience benefits to help achieve mission assurance.

The U.S. military is working to increase their renewable portfolio to 25% by 2025. Fort Hood Army base in Texas produces nearly 50% of its energy from on-base renewables. This allows the base not only to function in the face of a possible attack on the U.S. energy grid but also to save $100 million in the next 30 years. Fort Hood is just the latest example of the military’s growing interest in renewable energy.  The Navy met its goal of producing one gigawatt of renewable energy ahead of its 2015 target, due mostly to the largest purchase of renewable energy by a federal entity to date in 2014.

National Security

Renewable energy provides increased national security, in line with the mission of the armed forces. Often safer than fossil fuels, renewables provide less dependence on foreign oil and fit the military’s security and defense needs. This added security is a key motivator in adding renewables into the military’s power systems to support their operations.

Renewable technologies and locally sourced energies are key to fuel diversification goals. The DoD emphasizes diversification of operational energy supplies in combat zones, within DoD machinery, and in domestic facilities.  “The Pentagon has a number of renewable energy contracts in the procurement pipeline that locks the military into a low-priced energy from renewable sources and provides strategic diversity across the energy supply chain,” said James Goudreau, retired US Navy Captain and former acting deputy assistant secretary of Navy for Energy. This includes a continued focus on biofuels as an alternative energy source for naval machinery, where testing began on 50/50 blends of conventional and alternatively fueled planes in 2016.

Renewable energy can help mitigate the threats and costs to national security from imported oil. According to the Rand Corporation Research Group, the largest potential link between imported oil and U.S. national security is the potential of a large disruption in global supplies of oil, followed by increases in payments by U.S. consumers due to reductions in supply by oil exporters. These risks are purely economic, yet still pose a threat to the access to reliable fuel sources, as the military consumes over 100 million barrels of oil per year.

Contrary to popular belief, these national security notions are primarily economically driven and much less about terrorist attacks. Terrorist attacks, according to The Rand Corporation, cost so little to perpetrate, that attempting to curtail terrorist financing through measures affecting the oil market will not be effective. The link between national security and oil-export revenues that finance small terrorist groups is minimal. National security threats can be mitigated by continuing to invest in diverse fuel sources and energy independence.

Resiliency

The DoD realizes that an over-reliance on fossil fuels could undermine its resilience during a power grid failure or reduce its fighting capacity if energy supplies are compromised at the time of war. Energy resilience is the ability to prepare for and recover from energy disruptions that impact mission assurance on military installations (DoDI 4170.11). Renewable energy is a tool to increase resiliency and energy efficiency.

The U.S. Army has begun using clean energy projects to target resiliency through microgrids. Projects that were originally set up to curate a clean energy economy are now serving dual purposes as microgrids.  Michael F. McGhee, Executive Director of the U.S. Army’s Office of Energy Initiatives, described an energy security project concept for the Joint Forces Training Base (JFTB) in Los Alamitos, California, where a developer would construct, own, operate, and maintain 16 MW of solar power, energy storage, and microgrid components. Conceptually, the Army would benefit from enhanced energy security through the developer’s “islandable” capability to power critical missions for at least 14 days during a grid emergency, according to Energy Manager Today. Clean energy projects are becoming more pivotal than ever in the U.S. Army when it comes to energy resiliency.

When asked what energy resilience means to him, retired Army Colonel and former Chief of US Army Operational Energy Office Paul Roege told Energy Digital,

“Resilience is the ability to survive and thrive under a changing situation that can happen quickly or over a long-term, and be able to recover quickly from an attack, whether it is cyber or physical, or due to changing global climate. And renewable energy is an important piece of the puzzle for military’s energy resilience because it can improve reliability.”

Legislative Compliance

In addition to security and resiliency, legislative requirements in the past decade have compelled the DoD to move towards alternative and renewable energy sources. In compliance with the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 and the National Defense Authorization Act of 2010, military installations and facilities in the US are required to be energy efficient and produce or buy 25% of their total facility energy use from renewable sources by 2025.

Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 aims to move the US towards greater energy independence and security, and increase production of clean, renewable energy fuels. Within the DoD, U.S. Code 2911, The Energy Policy of the Department of Defense, U.S.C. §2911(e) established a goal for DoD to produce or procure not less than 15 percent by fiscal year (FY) 2018, and 25 percent of the total quantity of facility energy it consumes within its facilities by FY 2025 and each fiscal year thereafter from renewable energy sources. DoD’s progress toward the 10 U.S.C. § 2911(e) renewable energy goal in FY 2016 was 12.6 percent (DoD Annual Energy Report). Additionally, The Departments of the Army, Navy, and Air Force have each established service-level goals of 1GW of renewable energy on or near their installations. Beyond legislative requirements, the military energy policy is driven by cost reduction, energy efficiency and resilience; and renewable energy is integral to each aspect.

Return on Investment

Renewable electricity is now cheaper than conventional generation in more than 60 countries, and will be the most inexpensive source of power everywhere by 2020. The DoD has invested in renewable energy on the premise that despite the startup costs and the research investment that it is cost-effective in the long run, with a worthwhile return on investment.

The DoD uses various financial authorities to increase the supply of distributed (on-site) and renewable energy sources on its installations. DoD uses both appropriated funds and non-Governmental financing to pursue renewable energy projects. DoD partners with private entities to enable the development of large-scale renewable energy projects and relies on congressional appropriations to fund cost effective, small-scale distributed generation projects. These projects are funded by third parties through Utility Service Contracts (USCs), Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs), and out grants.

It seems that the energy goals in the military mirror the civilian realities. The work that the military is doing already penetrates the bounds of the armed services through the impact and protection it provides for civilian lives. But, in the arena of renewable energy, the parallel goes further. As the military forges the way towards resiliency and energy independence, US states will follow suit because of the changing global climate and impacts of extreme weather. Additionally, just as NASA’s Apollo program for moon exploration led to huge advances in engineering and computing in the 1960s and 1970s, military investments in alternative energy sources could develop technology with important civilian uses.