War is changing: the battlefield of today is becoming increasingly decentralized. This requires the Department of Defense – a historically top-down, centralized institution – to adopt new approaches to meeting its energy needs.
This is one of several insights shared by Assistant Secretary of Defense for Operational Energy Plans and Programs Sharon Burke at the luncheon panel E2 hosted during this year’s Cleantech Forum, and at our roundtable event later in the evening. Ms Burke’s office was established to build energy awareness into operational policy and procurement – what it takes to sustain the fighting force in the field.
There is no longer a clearly demarcated "frontline." This changes how our soldiers fight, operate, and use energy. Fuel and supply lines to the forward operating bases where solders live and operate must be maintained through a heavy investment in route clearance, armored convoys, and security forces – representing not only direct dollars and lives, but also opportunity cost. Fuel and water constitute about 70% of supply movements.
Deployed forces want better energy technology, for the sole reason that it enhances their warfighting capability. Lighter, denser batteries reduce the weight soldiers carry. On-the-go generation allows them to re-charge depleted supplies in the field. Renewable generation and storage systems don’t have the refueling and maintenance requirements of traditional diesel generators, nor the heat signature, noise, or smoke. Efficient engines enhance range and endurance. Microgrids save soldiers the need to constantly fuel, repair, and maintain a separate generator for each use.
The DOD’s efforts in this area are an enormous market signal to innovate and invest in these types of technologies – technologies that also hold tremendous potential to create value throughout the civilian economy.
While DOD cares about return on investment, of greater importance is return on capability, which directly affects the conditions that our men and women in uniform fight in.
"We are doomed to fight the last war."
What the military invests in and builds today is what it will depend on to fight with 10, 20, or maybe 50 years from now. Operations in the Middle East have demonstrated that distributed operations utterly reliant on constant re-supply to power operations represent significant direct costs, opportunity costs, and structural vulnerability. Changes in how wars are fought, and future theatres of war, will expose new vulnerabilities and will give rise to more lethal and precise weapons capable of capitalizing on those vulnerabilities.
DOD’s energy targets
DOD’s energy bill has increased five-fold since 2000, to over $15 billion last year. Roughly one quarter of that is spent on base facilities, with the balance on operations.
U.S. military installations must have their key energy requirements met 24 hours a day. However, with a $4 billion annual energy bill, facility energy is a prime target for reducing costs.
US bases remain dependent on local utilities and the national grid, but are moving to increase their self-sufficiency: the Army, Navy and Air Force have a collective goal to adopt 3GW of clean energy by 2025. To realize savings, third-party financing helps the military obtain energy infrastructure enhancements and energy security benefits with minimal upfront costs.
The President’s budget released March 4th includes $1.7 billion in energy initiatives for the DOD next year, and $10 billion over the next five years. About 85% of that amount is set aside to improve energy efficiency of all kinds – from aircraft engines to facilities to batteries.
Broad energy targets for facilities are set at the top, but individual base commanders have responsibility for setting specific targets and managing variable costs. Facilities management and monitoring of energy use has advanced over the past five years, but a host of opportunity remains to draw on solutions already in service in the private sector.
At the operations level, commanders are not put under pressure to hit energy targets – their directive is to complete their mission. In the field, the motivation for less energy intensive solutions is enhanced fighting capability. Select base or combat commands have discretionary authority to spend money and immediate deploy new technology they deem critical to their mission. This is uncommon, but energy projects have been deployed this way before.
Technology Procurement
DOD’s procurement process was designed for large-scale, centralized purchasing decisions with long time horizons. While this process might be appropriate for contracting the construction of aircraft carriers, it does not translate well to small-scale, localized, immediate needs identified by forces on the ground. This is a recognized problem, and several routes have been set up to facilitate speedier uptake of new technologies from smaller businesses.
"Requirements generation authority" is key – the products businesses sell to the military have to address formally stated needs, or "requirements." An example of a program with such authority is the Army’s Rapid Equipping Force. When mission critical needs are identified, this program can issue "requirements" themselves rather than go through the typical process, in an effort to get technologies out in the field as rapidly as possible. Note that this specific "rapid" process takes at least a year.
The military will issue "broad area announcements", which are open solicitations for immediate needs. (Announcements from Army, Office of Naval Research) Of particular note is the work done at Fort Devens, which not only has a test site for new technologies, but also authority to immediately put in a "program of record" for products they prove, meaning that the approved technology no longer has to go through the typical multi-year acquisition cycle (efficient LED lighting is one example of tech that has gone through this program).
There is also the Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Technology Transfer Program, which authorizes contracts or grants to small businesses in the interest of commercial technological innovation benefiting DOD.
Given that larger, established contractors are better equipped to respond to DOD solicitations, opportunities for smaller businesses most often arise when product focuses align with specifically stated "requirements", and the large players bring on the small businesses to address those requirements. The DOD is working on setting up consortia to help businesses find each other in this way.
For a more complete listing of solicitations and opportunities, see FedBizOpps and DefenseInnovationMarketplace.