Disaster response typically involves a collaborative effort between local communities and military installations. The National Renewable Energy Lab is helping establish those partnerships in an effort to improve energy resiliency and avert disasters in the Colorado Springs area.
NREL worked with representatives at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado, Fort Carson, and Air Force Academy, as well as the city of Colorado Springs and Colorado Springs Utilities, said Frederick Brooks, 21st Civil Engineer Squadron installation flight chief manager.
“Air Force installations are working alongside key stakeholders to enhance resilience at bases and within the community,” Brooks said. “Colorado Springs, Colorado serves as one example of how to build resilience through the Air Force Community Partnership Program.”
Most activities are dependent on an installation having access to energy, which would pose a problem in the event of a disaster, said Rob Hardison, NREL researcher.
“The idea is being able to respond to disasters that might strike an installation, ranging from natural to man-made,” Hardison said. “Specifically on the energy side of things, we’re looking at how to limit downtime on the grid, and to be able to respond and get the grid back up to its normal operating conditions as quickly as possible.”
For this reason, it is important for military bases to have a backup method that can provide energy or fuel in the short term when typical sources are not available, Hardison said.
An example is using solar panels to run emergency equipment, although that option is not always appropriate because solar panels can be damaged by hailstorms, he said.
“There’s challenges with that as well. In the work that we’ve done after Puerto Rico, you could see lots of damage on solar panels,” Hardison said. “It’s not like renewables are the answer to everything. It’s figuring out how to best integrate it – maybe even having mobile solar panels to be able to provide energy in the short term.”
Robin Burton, NREL research analyst, hopes training videos created by NREL will inspire Airmen at Peterson AFB to use existing community partnerships, as well as cultivate new ones, in order to improve energy resiliency.
“Then on their own, they can continue to develop relationships with community entities to have a coordinated approach to improving resilience for the community as a whole,” she said.
NREL hopes to model the partnerships developed here at other military installations, Hardison said, as well as share lessons they learn with a broader Air Force audience,
“One of the key points that we’re trying to get across in all this is that it’s difficult to do resilience planning in standalone islands,” Hardison said. “It’s much more robust and much more resilient to do it in partnership with the surrounding community and stakeholders from across the board.”
| Date Taken: | 11.09.2018 |
| Date Posted: | 11.27.2018 11:08 |
| Story ID: | 299419 |
| Location: | COLORADO SPRINGS, CO, US |
| Web Views: | 48 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, NREL aims to improve energy resiliency on military installations, by Robert Lingley, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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