Army/DoD Energy Policy

The ERDC-CERL Fuel Cell Team is working under guidelines from the Department of the Army, DOD, and DOE in regards to energy policy and strategy. The guidance comes from the following:

Army Energy Strategy for Installations
TRADOC Pamphlet 525-66 (refers to Force Operating Capabilities (FOCs)

FOC-08-04: Installations as our Flagships
FOC-09-03: Power and Energy

2005 Energy Policy Act

A. Army Energy Strategy for Installations
http://army-energy.hqda.pentagon.mil

The Army Energy and Water Campaign Plan for Installations will help the Army to provide safe, secure, reliable, environmentally compliant, and cost-effective energy and water services to soldiers, families, civilians, and contractors on Army installations. The Campaign Plan, originally developed in 2005, implements the Army Energy Strategy for Installations and sets forth the Army’s 25-year energy goals through 2030. The Campaign Plan defines actions and the short, mid, and long-term methods, tools, technologies, and projects required to ensure the Army successfully achieves long-range energy and water goals and arrives at a more secure energy dependent future with increased efficiency use of utility resources.

The Strategy sets the general direction for the Army in five major initiatives:

Eliminate energy waste in existing facilities
Eliminate and reduce energy inefficiencies that waste natural and financial resources, and do so in a manner that does not adversely impact comfort and quality of the facilities in which Soldiers, families, civilians and contractors work and live.
Increase energy efficiency in new construction and renovations
Increase the use of energy technologies that provide the greatest cost-effectiveness, energy efficiency and support environmental considerations.
Reduce dependence on fossil fuels
Increase the use of clean, renewable energy to reduce dependency on fossil fuels and to optimize environmental benefits and sustainability.
Conserve water resources
Reduce water use to conserve water resources for drinking and domestic purposes.
Improve energy security
Provide for the security and reliability of energy and water systems in order to provide dependable utility services.

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B. TRADOC Pamphlet 525-66 (refers to Force Operating Capabilities (FOCs)
http://www.tradoc.army.mil/tpubs/pams/P525-66.pdf

The Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) has definitions on improving the Army's Force Operating Capabilities (FOCs). The FOCs are structured statements of operational capabilities which, when achieved in aggregate, fulfill the vision articulated in the Joint and Army Concepts as they apply to the Future Force. ERDC-CERL is working towards two particular FOCs 1) FOC-08-04: Installations as our Flagships, and 2) FOC-09-03: Power and Energy

FOC-08-04: Installations as our Flagships

Capstone Capabilities. The revolutionary changes reflected by initiatives such as Army Transformation, Modular Force fielding, and Global Positioning Initiative will require fundamental changes in our installations. The role of installation is shifting to continuous support from home station to foxhole. Increased OPTEMPO, modular and agile units, the diversity of the Army family, and increased flexibility to adapt to rapidly changing functional/operational needs supportability are placing significant demands on the capabilities and capacities of installations from a warfighter perspective. These capabilities apply to our permanent installations at home and abroad, as well as to those that support expeditionary and contingency activities. In addition or adjunct to installation natural and built infrastructure needs inculcated into the other FOCs contained herein as DOTMLPF synchronization considerations, the following encompasses those focused capabilities most critical to achieving required installation support for the Army:

Provide Power Projection - enable the Army to rapidly respond to and sustain military actions worldwide from its installations and base camps
Maintain Readiness- provide Soldiers with the natural and built infrastructure to train, maintain and reconstitute
Maintain Quality of Life - address the changing expectations of our more diverse and educated Army in 3 critical areas: how Soldiers and their families live; where Soldiers and their families live; and where Soldiers and civilians work.

Capstone Capabilities. Improve both strategic responsiveness and core warfighting abilities to effectively fight as an integral component of a joint, interdependent, full spectrum, mission-tailored force, by optimizing combat effectiveness via consumption reduction, alternative generation, management, and distribution of power and energy across the force, for all systems-automotive, electrical and soldier.

(1) Current power and energy consumption rates across the force result in a significant logistical burden for both the warfighter and sustainment force. The viability of many proposed FOCs is dependent upon the significant reduction of power and energy consumption rates, parallel improvements in distribution means, evolutionary generation processes, and incorporation of embedded power management, into all components and systems. This requires leap-ahead optimization of portable power source output, versus size and weight, in all applications.

(2) Providing bulk fuels and packaged oils and lubricants to the Objective Force represents a significant, continuing (though reduced), mission for the sustainment force. The use of a single fuel for both ground and aviation will simplify support operations. Efficiencies gained through improvements in the engineering and manufacturing processes will lessen fuel requirements for ground vehicles. Fuel cells and other in-place technologies will negate the need for storage of large quantities of bulk fuels for ground vehicles alone.

(3) Logistical planners will still have to consider the full range of fuel and energy sources. Fossil fuels are still the major source of fuel for The Army. Power trains must evolve into more efficient devices that will burn less fossil fuel, while pushing lighter, stronger equipment at greater distances across the battlefield. The use of alternatives to fossil fuel, including fuel cells, fusion, fission, hydrogen energy, renewable sources, biomass, and magnetohydrodynamic thrusters, must be pursued for significant advances in efficiency to be made. Systems of the future will look at power storage and distribution as two halves of the same whole, rather than as disparate systems.

(4) Additionally, as highly technical soldier systems continue to evolve, The Army will place increased priority upon viable lightweight, high-output power sources. Land Warrior-type integrated ensemble soldier systems are only the beginning of what is possible in the digital age. The Army must leverage lessons learned from industry, and apply them toward improving sustainment of the individual soldier, as it has already done in organizational design and heavy weapons platform engineering. Ruggedized micro/miniature power sources to enable cooling, heating, communications, target designation, weapons firing, assisted breathing, strength amplification, local sensing, operation of small tools, etc., are required to support the Objective Force soldier. Soldiers must be capable of 'plugging in' to a variety of common energy supply sources. Objective Force platforms must provide interface for soldiers to replenish soldier borne power storage devices.

The Domenici-Barton Energy Policy Act of 2005 was signed by President Bush on 08 AUG 05. Army / DoD related guidance includes:

Directs the federal government to use more renewable energy, with a goal of using 7.5 percent or more by 2013.
Directs the federal government to meter or submeter all federal buildings by October 1, 2012.
Requires a 20 percent reduction in federal building energy use by 2015, provides funding for energy efficiency programs for public buildings, including schools and hospitals, and increases fuel efficiency requirements for federal vehicles.
Directs the DOE to fund selected demonstration projects that involve using hydrogen and related products at existing facilities or installations, such as existing office buildings, military bases, vehicle fleet centers, transit bus authorities, or units of the National Park System.
Requires sustainable design principles to be applied to the siting, design, and construction of all new and replacement federal buildings.
Green procurement guidance.