Alternative and Renewable Energy - Advanced Materials ...

Spiral 2: 3/28/2011Department of Defense Energy HandbookAlternative and Renewable Energy Options for DoD Facilities and Bases1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARYOver the past several decades, and more particularly the last few years, the Department of Defense(DoD) has been presented with the challenge of reducing energy consumption while continuing toperform its mission at the customarily high level mandated by the Federal Government and expected bythe American people. Through legislation, executive orders, DoD directives and policies, and Servicespecificguidance, DoD facilities and bases are charged with reducing overall energy use and increasingtheir reliance on renewable energy sources. This challenge is complicated by the requirement that eachunit and facility must maintain the same level of readiness in order to carry out their mission. Thus,operational efficiency must be maintained or improved, and viable alternative and renewable energyoptions must be implemented.Much information on renewable and alternative energy options exists. However, such information tendsto be scattered among disparate sources, and even then individual sources are insufficient to give facilitymanagers and base commanders the confidence needed to recommend and implement changes.Moreover, not all energy options will have a positive impact; suitable energy alternatives must beassessed for each individual circumstance. This is doubly important, as choosing the wrong energyapproach may lead to a number of negative consequences. The need, therefore, is for a reference thatprovides guidance and pertinent technical information when assessing and formulating power and energystrategies for DoD facilities and bases.The Department of Defense manages 1.96 billion square feet of facilities and spent $3.6 billion on energyfor facilities in the fiscal year of 2009. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 set into law several substantialenergy requirements for federal agencies, including renewable energy generation and energy usagereduction requirements. Soon after, in 2007, the Energy Independence and Security Act strengthenedthe energy usage reduction requirement and added energy auditing and reporting requirements.Through these laws, combined with several executive orders and DoD policies, the DoD has beencharged with (1) reducing facility energy consumption 30 percent by 2015, and (2) producing orprocuring 25 percent of its facility energy from renewable sources by 2025. Furthermore, they arerequired to install advanced energy meters; institute energy efficiency, training, and awareness programs;and require energy efficient product procurement, among many other goals and requirements.The DoD consumes nearly 900 trillion British thermal units of energy each year, and of this totalapproximately 32 percent is energy for facilities. The DoD uses approximately 30 terawatt-hours ofelectricity each year, and approximately 3.6 percent of this is from renewable sources. Despite recentsuccess, the Department must make greater strides in the reduction of energy consumption and theincrease in use of renewable energy resources in order to provide reliable and cost effective utilityservices to the warfighter.Conventional, nonrenewable energy sources are reliable in terms of their ability to provide consistentpower levels. However, the DoD is dependent on many of these sources, some of which are fromderived from foreign sources, particularly petroleum. While other fossil fuels, such as coal and naturalgas are domestically available, they are still nonrenewable and have many environmental issuessurrounding them. Nuclear energy and hydropower are also relatively stable power sources, but havetheir own drawbacks, safety and capital cost being the foremost issues, respectively.Renewable energy technology has been advancing rapidly in recent years, and with it the implementationof renewable energy projects has progressed, including within the DoD. There have been severalsuccesses with both large scale and small scale renewable energy projects. Solar, wind, biomass, andgeothermal have all been implemented, while offshore wind, tidal, and wave energy projects are on thehorizon and may be implemented with sufficient technical advancements and achievements.1