Swamp Stomp
Volume 17, Issue 22
In an effort to improve energy security, military leaders are looking to use on-site power storage. Since they are not the experts on this technology, two of the military branches are reaching out to the energy industry for ideas about how to most effectively utilize this rapidly growing technology.
“Developers have been working on building and commercializing the necessary battery technology to complement intermittent renewable power sources, and now the military appears more interested in their success” (Mintz).
On April 25, the Army and Air Force, along with the Defense Logistics Agency, asked for information from companies regarding the new technology as well as their thoughts on “approaches, opportunities and strategies” for implementing energy storage projects on installations.
The interest comes as a logical next step to the military installing renewable energy systems on bases, said Michael McGhee, who heads the Army’s Office of Energy Initiatives, in an interview.
“To us, a very attractive situation would be where we have on-site generation on Army installations, on-site storage, whether that be fuel or battery storage, and then finally combined with the necessary controls that allow power to be turned inward … in the event of a grid disruption,” he said.
“The efforts, which have been ongoing for years, also tie to a recent Army directive on energy and water security, which ordered installations to work toward meeting mission-critical energy and water needs for a minimum of 14 days” (Greenwire, March 28).
While this technology looks very promising, there is a drawback. If there is horrible weather or a cyberattack, there could be potentially catastrophic grid disruptions.
“We do have a concern about the vulnerabilities that may be evident in the current infrastructure that is the national grid,” McGhee said.
Extreme weather is a great concern due to the increased frequency and severity of extreme weather events, he said, but equally concerning are “malevolent actors have been probing and are looking at and have been attempting to insert malware into systems that manage or otherwise operate the grid.”
“Those attacks appear to be intended to disrupt the grid in ways that would be rather catastrophic,” McGhee said. “We are concerned … that if these attacks are successful, they could result in large-scale and long-term grid outages, more than we have seen before.”
Do you think this technology should be utilized by the military? If so, how do you think they should use it?
Source: Mintz, Sam. “Military Focuses on Developing Energy Storage.” E&E News. Greenwire, 08 May 2017. Web. 08 May 2017.