NEW ORLEANS -- In 2010 Marine Forces Reserve spent approximately $3.8 million on energy costs for 33 Reserve Training Centers across the United States. That amount was only a fraction of the total considering 150 other locations and their associated costs are shared with other services.
Working out of a small office at the Marine Corps Support Facility here, Doug Connor and Alain Flexer, who both work for MarForRes Facilities division, oversee energy use, cost and development throughout MarForRes. The two have been brainstorming different ways to cut energy use and cost as well as developing ways for Reserve centers to produce their own energy.
One of the main ways Connor and Flexer have tried to cut energy costs is by reaching out and influencing Marines at their local Home Training Centers. Many of those contacts were often unaware of their monthly energy bill and the habits and trends that unnecessarily ramp up energy costs.
“Generally if you’re not writing the check you’re not really concerned with it,” Connor said. “You crank the air conditioning up then you crank the heater up, you leave the lights on … that’s fairly common. You don’t think about it because you don’t have to pay the bill.”
Another cost-cutting measure being initiated is the use of smart meters. The meters display how much energy is being used at the moment, energy-use trends and even compare energy use on certain hours, days or months.
Another local-level initiative is the Reserve Sustainment Utilities Manual which the MarForRes Facilities department published in January. This manual provides guidance on energy policies to Reserve units. The manual also establishes that each Reserve site must have a utilities manager who will be responsible for monitoring energy and water consumption levels at each site; as well as serving as the unit liaison for local contractors who are conducting energy or utility projects at the location.
This is a significant change as previously Connor and Flexer were solely responsible for monitoring all 183 sites spread across the United States and Puerto Rico.
Connor believes that working with Marines at the local level is one way MarForRes can work to cut energy costs as a whole. Connor sites the recent example of a sergeant from a unit in California who contacted him looking for information about his unit’s energy costs as evidence of this.
“I gave him online access (to the energy and utilities bills) so now he can look at it every month and see if what he is doing is making any difference,” said Connor. “If he sets the air conditioning higher, or tries to keep the supply door closed, he can see what he and the Marines at his unit can do to cut down on their bills.”
Utilizing Renewable Energy
In addition to saving money by curbing energy use, MarForRes has begun to invest in renewable energy projects at multiple locations. These projects, such as wind turbines and solar panels, will generate free energy for MarForRes facilities and benefit the environment by being pollution-free.
The initial cost to build them is high, but, according to Flexer, the projects save such a significant amount of money that they pay for themselves over time. For example, some Reserve sites in California that do not use renewable energy are paying as much as 20 cents per kilowatt hour for energy use, as opposed to 5 cents per kilowatt hour at other sites that have made the transition to green energy.
Utilizing California’s abundant sunlight, solar panels have begun to take a bite out of energy costs. California-based drill centers in Pico Rivera, Pasadena and Bakersfield already generate anywhere from three to nine kilowatt hours of energy at any moment, with Port Hueneme topping the list at 25 kilowatt hours generated. For scale, a typical Reserve center uses 300,000 kilowatt hours a year, or approximately 821 kilowatt hours a day. A unit with a 60 kilowatt solar array and an average of five hours of sun for 365 days a year could provide 82,125 kilowatt hours a year. This would be 27 percent of the energy the unit would need each year.
The most powerful solar panel system on a Reserve center in Louisiana was recently installed at the headquarters for Company F, Anti-Terrorism Battalion in Lafayette, La.
“At any one time it can produce a maximum of 225 kilowatts of energy. We generate 806 kilowatt hours of electricity every day out of that center. For the year we generated about 294,418,” said Connor. “They use about 400,000 kilowatt hours a year, which means that the Reserve center will generate three-quarters of the energy they need.”
“When they first turned this system on we watched the meter run backwards as they were now generating more power than they use,” he said. “At the end of the day we will save 75 percent of our utility bill.”
In addition to solar panels, several wind turbine projects have been initiated at multiple locations across New York, Texas and Michigan. These locations may not have ample sunlight but plenty of wind. Most of the turbines are 155 feet tall and can generate 100 kilowatt hours of energy per day. The most ambitious wind turbine project to date is currently underway in Galveston, Texas, where 1.8 megawatts of energy will be generated daily, with the turbine expected to pay for itself in 16 years.
This turbine will provide power to not only the local MarForRes unit but to the Coast Guard and Army Corps of Engineer units there as well.
In addition to solar panels and wind turbines, MarForRes is also working on a geothermal project in Brunswick, Maine, that would use the Earth’s energy below ground to provide heat in the winter and absorb heat in the summer. Also on the drawing board is the possibility of using river power to generate electricity.
Energy Security
In recent years the Department of Defense has categorized cyber warfare as a priority and in 2010 created the United States Cyber Command. CYBERCOM, as it is known, oversees the security of U.S. military networks in the event of a cyber attack. A cyber attack is an attempt to undermine or compromise the function of a computer-based system, or attempt to track the online movements of individuals without their permission.
With the threat of cyber warfare a reality, electrical grids could be a target. Such organizations as the North American Electric Reliability Corporation have stated that electrical grids in the U.S. are particularly vulnerable to cyber attack.
If an enemy force or malicious hacker were to hack or disrupt the computer networks that run the electrical grids, multiple cities or even states could be left without power. One example of this is a 2003 power outage in the northeast, where a disruption at an energy plant in Ohio caused a chain reaction across the energy grid that left 45 million people in eight U.S. states and 10 million people in Ontario, Canada, without power.
A major disruption like this would limit the military’s capabilities. This has led Connor and Flexer to start planning for Reserve centers to be able to function completely “off the grid” without an external energy source.
“What we are looking at is to, over time, be able to provide all of our own energy and not rely on the grid. So if the grid should go down, we should be able to generate our electricity for a substantial period of time,” said Flexer.
Currently, Connor and Flexer are looking into battery or energy storage technology.
“This would provide us additionally abilities to store and harness energy so that in the event the grid goes down, we could store energy,” said Flexer. “Partnered with renewable and self-generated energy, in the future we could be off the grid completely.”
In addition to cutting costs and providing a secure source of energy at home, renewable energy sources will also be the way of the future on the battlefield, according to Commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. James F. Amos.
“The current and future operating environment requires an expeditionary mindset geared toward increased efficiency and reduced consumption, which will make our forces lighter and faster,” said Amos. “We will aggressively pursue innovative solutions to reduce energy demand in our platforms and systems, increase our self-sufficiency in our sustainment, and reduce our expeditionary foot print on the battlefield. Transforming the way we use energy is essential to rebalance our Corps and prepare it for the future.”
Although working with over 180 sites can be a challenge, Flexer said it provides many opportunities and that he looks forward to the future.
“It’s both a challenge because we are so spread out, but it also provides us great opportunities,” said Flexer. “We’ve got Reserve centers in locations with great wind, for instance, where many other Marine Corps bases don’t have that. It’s real exciting…we’ve got some great opportunities coming up. I think we are pretty far advanced, with what we are doing for both the Marine Corps and the Department of the Navy.”