NEWS PROVIDED BY US Department of Energy December 04, 2020, 19:16 GMT
Energy Department Accelerates Energy Efficiency and Operational Resilience Advancements at Federal Facilities via Performance Contracts
Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $11 million in funding for 16 federal agency projects to catalyze the adoption of energy efficiency, renewable energy, and operational resilience technologies at critical facilities across the federal government.
The Assisting Federal Facilities with Energy Conservation Technologies (AFFECT) Federal Agency Call helps DOE’s Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) bring energy efficiency and resilience projects to federal facilities. With the funding announced today, selected agencies will promote the use of external, leveraged funds to increase their energy resilience, support the deployment of integrated energy systems, and improve the safety, health, and operations of federal facilities. When combined with cost-share from industry, the total investment in energy efficiency, renewable energy, and operational resilience could surpass $439 million.
“The goal of DOE’s Federal Energy Management Program is to help improve the energy efficiency of our federal partners in order to help them achieve their missions,” said Daniel R Simmons, Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. “With these selections, we are helping to improve the federal government’s economic, energy, and environmental performance through greater energy efficiency and energy resilience.”
To increase the impact of the projects, federal agencies will leverage almost $440 million in performance contracting-related investment by using alternative-financing mechanisms, such as energy savings performance contracts (ESPCs), ESPC ENABLE, and utility energy service contracts (UESCs). Selected agencies will install both traditional energy-efficiency measures and innovative energy-conservation measures (ECMs), such as battery energy-storage systems with microgrid controls. These projects will support DOE’s goal of improving the affordability, integration, and storage capabilities of all federal energy-management systems.
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Selectee Descriptions
- National Park Service (NPS): NPS will update and supplement the existing electricity generation and distribution systems of remote marinas in the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. Using solar photovoltaic (PV) systems and backup battery storage, the National Park Service will minimize the use of fossil fuel generating electricity at the remote, off-grid sites and also in transport barges on Lake Powell and the Colorado River, which poses a significant environmental risk.
- General Services Administration (GSA) Region 4: The Sam Nunn Federal Building in Atlanta, Georgia, will deploy a novel, wind-based, renewable-energy technology, the Advanced WindWallTM, thereby validating a GSA Green Proving Ground technology. GSA also will install several other key ECMs to further increase energy efficiency.
- Goodfellow Air Force Base: Goodfellow will implement a comprehensive energy efficiency ESPC to upgrade and right-size chillers, which will directly increase the resilience of mission critical functions on base.
- Scott Air Force Base: Through a comprehensive energy efficiency and resilience ESPC project, Scott Air Force Base will improve the resilience of its data centers and control and command centers by installing solar PV and aa 100kW battery energy storage system (BESS) with microgrid controls.
- U.S. Customs and Border Protection: The agency will implement a new ESPC or ESPC ENABLE project that will improve energy efficiency, security, and management of operations at about 70 small, remote border facilities around the country that are essential to the successful execution of the agency’s mission, using features not typically included in ESPCs.
- U.S. Army Fort Belvoir: A comprehensive ESPC project will implement a wide-range of energy efficiency and resilience ECMs, deploying solar PV combined with a BESS and microgrid capabilities, backed up by natural gas engine generators to simultaneously reduce energy use and cost, improve resilience, and increase the use of renewable energy. The project will help Fort Belvoir meet U.S. Army requirements for sufficient energy delivery and water availability to ensure 14 days of continuous operation of critical mission operations in the event of a disruption.
- Office of Personnel Management: An ESPC for a mission critical data center at the Theodore Roosevelt Building will bundle an extensive collection of ECMs and resilience technologies to provide for three days of backup power, as well as $50-$60,000 in annual electricity cost savings, ensuring the continuation of mission critical operations.
- General Services Administration Region 7, Land Ports of Entry: A unique approach to implement improved resilience and security will deploy solar PV combined with a BESS to match the nighttime peak energy demands and reduce vulnerability to grid interruptions at six Land Port of Entry facilities located in Texas and New Mexico via an ESPC Energy Sales Agreement, increasing the sites’ security and reliable operation.
- Internal Revenue Service (IRS): IRS will implement an expanded set of ECMs via an ESPC, to include an extended natural gas pipeline and generators with dual-fuel capabilities, at a mission-critical data center facility.
- General Services Administration Region 7, Campus Building Microgrid: A UESC will combine solar PV with a BESS, microgrid controls, and a comprehensive range of ECMs at four courthouses and a parking garage in Oklahoma.
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Via an extensive UESC, landfill gas will power a new, combined heat and power plant that will cover nearly one hundred percent of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s energy requirements, curbing annual utility costs by fifty percent or roughly $10 million..
- Vandenberg Air Force Base: The installation will expand an earlier power purchase agreement, which installed a 28 MW solar PV plant, to integrate a BESS with microgrid controls. In addition, other energy efficiency and resilience ECMs will be implemented via a UESC that will help the base manage operations more effectively during emergency power disruptions
- Veterans Health Administration: The Veterans Health Administration will leverage a comprehensive ESPC project to install energy efficiency and resilience ECMs that will reduce energy use and costs, extend the operability, and directly advance the mission of the VA’s critical hospital services for the Rocky Mountain Regional Medical Center.
- Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA): DEA will implement five separate UESC projects at five forensic laboratories to deploy targeted, laboratory-specific water, energy efficiency, and resilience ECMs. By addressing this energy-intensive building type, DEA will capture energy and cost savings that presently account for more than a third of its entire annual energy budget while also improving safety in leased laboratory spaces.
- U.S. Army Natick Solider System Center (NSSC): NSSC will deploy an integrated solar PV and a BESS with microgrid controls under an inclusive ESPC project, allowing the base to benefit from demand response utility savings, shaving or moving peak load energy use, and the ability to operate independently of the grid during a disruption event.
- Marine Corps Logistics Base Albany: The base will combine a comprehensive energy efficiency UESC project with the installation of cybersecurity controls for building automation systems. These measures, along with a previously installed, on-base solar PV system with battery storage technology coupled with microgrid controls, will simultaneously increase the base’s energy efficiency, security, and resilience.
