The US Air Force Office of Energy Assurance been developing innovative solutions for energy resilience as a core component of national security, explains Dr Richard Hartman, Chief Innovation Officer for the Air Force, during an exclusive interview at Enlit Europe 2023.
With a primary focus on meeting mission needs, Hartman explains the importance of such solutions as “energy security is national security.”
A key example, he says, is that of “Energy as a Service (EaaS). The Department of Air Force is doing the first government energy as a service project in the United States.
“When you’re on an installation as an energy manager you have several contracts that you’re trying to work and they all have different dates and they all have different expectations.”
However, through the EaaS model, which is still being developed as a prototype, such various energy contracts are streamlined into a singular, flexible contract vehicle.
“What EaaS does is really give us the flexibility to take care of our energy needs and also includes energy innovations as part of it, (such as) different kinds of PV, different kinds of storage at the installations.”
Additionally, states Hartman, the EaaS model, through its prototype model of ‘other transactional authorities’, enables certain financial incentives for utilities.
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Hartman cites the example of an installation with the EaaS, where “we want to power, based on the contract, maybe one-tenth of the installation; maybe there’s an opportunity to power the entire installation. But we wouldn’t pay for that.”
Rather, using ‘other transactional authorities’, the Air Force collaborates with utilities or ESCOs (energy service companies), allowing them to make substantial investments in energy infrastructure.
These entities would then own and operate the invested infrastructure, with the Air Force committing to purchasing the energy produced over an extended contract period. The financial incentive lies in the substantial potential profits for the utility or ESCO, creating a mutually beneficial partnership in meeting energy resilience needs while fostering economic gains.
This EaaS model, however, is only one of the different innovations Hartman touts coming from the Air Force to ensure energy security. Another, he adds, relates to heat beneath our feet: geothermal energy.
Two projects in particular showcase this, at Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho and Joint Base San Antonio in Texas, involving drilling into the Earth to harness hot rock for power generation.
The techniques employed include using enhanced geothermal, which stimulates hot rock to generate steam, or advanced geothermal, a closed-loop process. These projects aim to ensure 24/7 resilient energy at the installations, reducing dependence on external energy sources.
Alongside gaining this energy independence, adds Hartman, “if we have excess energy that’s there, there might be a ‘potential’ (…) to export that energy to the local community.”
