![]() It’s about being prepared for battle and staying alive. Microgrids may be a perfect fit for the military - an organization that relies on a continuous flow of power at its training facilities and in the field. “Renewables and battery storage have the potential to last longer on fuel supplies and provide important energy diversity,” adds Brian Miller, a senior microgrid researcher at the National Renewable Energy Labs, in a release. While it says that it has decreased its greenhouse gas emissions by 20% since 2008, the army also says that it can do more to green the grid. To that end, the army says that it buys $740 million of electricity each year from the grid. But in a world defined by carbon limits, military thinkers want cleaner power that can stay on for weeks at a time - if the primary grid goes down. But instead of using diesel-powered backup generation, the armed forces now want to use renewables supported by battery storage. Microgrids are not necessarily new to the military. Specifically, the analysis says that the army will pursue enough renewable energy generation and battery storage capacity “to self-sustain its critical missions on all its installations by 2040.” The army and its partners are therefore investing in onsite renewable generation, large-scale battery storage, and microgrids, says the United States Army Climate Strategy report. ![]() Already, the armed forces have microgrids at bases in Alabama, North Carolina, and Massachusetts.īoth the navy and army have said that their campuses should operate off-grid for two weeks by 2025. The US military has said it would introduce microgrids to its more than 130 bases globally by 2035. “Additionally, self-sufficiency in the field offers energy security to operational bases as well as the ability to maintain mission readiness even when the local power is knocked out in the entire region.” “A properly configured microgrid offers absolutely critical resiliency to military installations,” says Adib Nasle, chief executive of San Diego-based Xendee, in a release. Moreover, those distributed assets will hook up with a microgrid that is expected to operate in “island mode” for a sustained period. It wants to increase its use of renewable generation and battery storage - in a cost-effective way. The US Army Base Longare in Italy has similar objectives. The base also wants to reduce its dependency on the local utility and foreign energy resources while also using more green energy. Not only was it able to power on, but it also had extra electricity that it shared with the neighboring community.Ĭonsider the US Army Garrison Bavaria in Germany, which is home to about 40,000 soldiers and civilians and is the largest military installation outside the United States: the goal is to improve energy security and resilience. A microgrid controller deals with the intermittency issue caused by renewables.ĭuring a recent heatwave that swept through southern California, the microgrid performed as advertised. That means the military base can calculate its energy needs and the amount of available electricity before deciding which sections of the facility should get prioritized. The microgrid controls the load at the meter, he says. That is, the military base wanted to know if relying on renewable power would be cost-effective and whether it could deliver critical loads for weeks at a time during an outage. ![]() Air Station, it sought to be economical, reliable, and technically feasible, says Wells. But they can also prevent the use of diesel-fired generators whose fumes can tip off the enemy during combat. They provide replacement power in the event the lights go out. Microgrids are working in unison with onsite generation and battery storage. The two provide the fuel needed to run operations. There, platforms with solar panels are combined with battery storage. But in the military world, those blackouts can cost lives - if the setup is on the battlefield. Outages can cost billions in lost economic opportunity. We can seamlessly generate power in island mode - off the grid - and do so without the lights blinking on and off.” “If the utility power goes off, the military base does not want all the computers to have a glitch,” says Chuck Wells chief technology officer and founder of PXiSE Energy Solutions in San Diego, in an interview with Environmental Leader. “They want to run their microgrid and not use a backup diesel generator.
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