Why the US Army is spending billions on clean energy

The US Army has made some impressive commitments to renewable energy, Daly writes, in an effort to procure reliable and locally generated energy sources.

|
Steve Marcus/Reuters/File
An array of solar photovoltaic panels is shown at the Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas, Nev.

Slowly but surely, the U.S. armed forces are getting serious about renewable energy.

In April 2012, the White House announced the Defense Department was making one of the largest commitments to clean energy in history, by setting a goal to deploy three gigawatts of renewable energy, including solar, wind, biomass or geothermal on Army, Navy and Air Force installations by 2025, enough energy to power 750,000 homes. The Army’s share of the initiative was the energy goal of generating one gigawatt.

Four months later, on 7 August 2012, the Army announced a $7 billion Multiple Award Task Contract (MATOC) Request for Proposal (RFP), designed to assist the Army in procuring reliable, locally generated, renewable and alternative energy through Power Purchase Agreements (PPA) for up to 30 years. (Related Article: Where's the Real Cost of Climate Change?

Since January 2014 the U.S. Army has added 21 companies to its $7 billion large-scale renewable and alternative energy power production MATOC program, covering work to develop and produce renewable energy for the Army and Defense Department. According to the Army Corps of Engineers, 79 contractors are now involved in the three decade program, with those selected competing for task orders to provide renewable energy by owning, operating and maintaining the energy assets.

Army Corps of Engineers Huntsville Center commander Col. Robert Ruch said, “We are adding these additional companies to those already in the technology pools to ensure we have enough pre-qualified companies ready to submit proposals on task orders as they come up. Huntsville Center is doing everything we can to ensure task orders for future projects will be awarded as quickly as possible.”

The program’s renewable energy mandate is very broad; 38 companies are competing for work in the program’s solar technology area, 20 in wind, 15 in biomass and six in geothermal and the new round of selections includes 15 for solar, three for wind and two for biomass. The second round of MATOC awards follows the original August 2012 Request For Proposal (RFP) which allowed for immediate awards to firms within the competitive range and additional awards to firms that after further government evaluation qualified.

The selected MATOC companies will be eligible to bid on future renewable energy task orders. As renewable energy opportunities at Army installations are assessed and validated, Huntsville Center will issue a competitive task order Request for Proposal to the pre-qualified MATOC companies for the specific technologies. Best of all for the Pentagon’s bottom line, MATOC involves third-party financedrenewable energy acquisitions and do not utilize any Army or Department of Defense capital, or Military Construction appropriation. Instead, the Army or DOD will purchase the renewable power from the MATOC contractors who own, operate and maintain the generating assets through power purchase agreements (PPA). The MATOC's total estimated value of $7 billion capacity refers to the total dollar value of energy available for purchase under all PPA task orders for their entire term of up to 30 years. (Related Article: Lockheed Martin to Build World’s Largest Wave Power Facility in Australia)

Not that the U.S. Army has suddenly embraced the environmental benefits of renewable energy. The MATOC contracts will support the Army's goal of fulfilling its congressionally mandated energy goal of generating one gigawatt, 25 percent of its energy requirements, from renewable sources by 2025 while improving installation energy security and sustainability.

The implementation of the MATOC program dates back to 3 May 2013, when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Engineering and Support Center, Huntsville, working with the Army Energy Initiatives Task Force (EITF), awarded the first Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) MATOC contracts for the first technology to support renewable energy on Defense Department installations. Individual MATOC awards were being staggered by technology, with the first announcement being for geothermal proposals. The five companies awarded contracts for use in competing and awarding PPA task orders using geothermal technology were Constellation NewEnergy, Inc., Baltimore, Md.; ECC Renewables, LLC, Burlingame, Calif.; Enel Green Power North America, Inc., Andover, Mass.; LTC Federal, LLC, Detroit, Mich. and Siemens Government Technologies, Inc., Arlington, Va. The announcement of awards for solar, wind and biomass technologies were staggered through the end of 2013.

The Army has made some impressive commitments to renewable energy – it will be interesting to see if they fulfill their mandates by 2025.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Why the US Army is spending billions on clean energy
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Energy-Voices/2014/0225/Why-the-US-Army-is-spending-billions-on-clean-energy
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe