Photo By Lisa Woodbury Rama | 211015-N-JO929-001 USNA (Oct. 15, 2021) Midshipmen 1st Class (MIDN 1/C) Ben Diny, MIDN...... read more read more
NAPLES, ITALY (Nov. 5, 2021) Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command Europe Africa Central (NAVFAC EURAFCENT) Public Works Departments (PWD) are on the front lines planning for and addressing climate change impacts for eight Navy installations on three continents. Addressing the impact of climate change on our readiness, operations and ability to fight and win is a national security and warfighting imperative for the Department of the Navy. Identifying innovative opportunities and approaches to increase energy efficiencies and savings is key to achieving greater climate change and energy resilience and NAVFAC Seabees and civilians are working hard at doing so every day.
Collaborating on proposal designs and obtaining third party reviews are ways to identify greater possible project efficiencies and savings but opportunities to do so are often difficult to come by. Receiving the offer of assistance on a project you are developing is rare so when Kostas Kavasis, Installation Energy Manager, PWD, Naval Support Activity (NSA) Souda Bay, Greece, received the offer of assistance from the U.S. Naval Academy (USNA) he jumped at it.
Each year the USNA Engineering Departments reach out to Navy engineering commands and research facilities to find "real world" projects with Navy and Marine Corps applications.
Prof. Karen Flack, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering approached Kavasis to include a microgrid project as one of the CAPSTONE projects offered to the midshipmen engineers. NSA Souda Bay currently has a microgrid proposal vetted through the Navy’s Energy Mission Integration Group process and ranked #1 Navywide in the Analysis of Alternatives Phase.
“The project will directly address energy reliability at Souda Bay which is critical because the frequency and duration of local utility power outages here are the highest in the Navy,” said Kavasis. “We also enjoy approximately 300 days of sunlight annually so the photo voltaic (PV) and battery-energy storage will make a big impact. Increasing the amount of renewable energy produced will help us towards meeting the Navy’s goals for renewable energy.”
Dr. William Anderson Jr., Director, Utilities Engineering and Management, Naval Facilities Engineering and Expeditionary Warfare Center (NAVFAC EXWC), proposed the NSA Souda Bay microgrid project to Prof. Flack.
“I am convinced that arming these future Naval Officers with a greater understanding of how to constructively apply their engineering skills to solve energy security and resilience challenges will better ensure they can accelerate the implementation of smarter and more cost effective microgrid solutions,” said Dr. Anderson. “The students' ability to understand the relationships between design choices in the renewable energy microgrid architecture and how those choices influence costs and resilience will be so much greater having implemented the modeling tools we use and have developed.”
A microgrid is a local energy system that incorporates three key components: generation, storage and demand, all within a bounded and controlled network. They have emerged as a promising means of increasing energy reliability and resilience while reducing environmental impacts and lowering energy costs.
Kavasis provided Prof. Flack and Prof. Dan Opila, Dept. of Electrical Engineering, USNA, with the Souda Bay microgrid details and four midshipmen got underway analyzing options and developing their own final design solution for the project.
Midshipmen 1st Class (MIDN 1/C) Jack Dabek, Mechanical Engineering major; MIDN 1/C Ben Diny, Mechanical Engineering major; MIDN 1/C Matthew Martin, Electrical Engineering major and MIDN 2/C Ross Massey, Mechanical Engineering major are working on this microgrid design to support energy distribution at NSA Souda Bay. The team appreciates how the real world application is greatly enhancing the learning.
“In the classroom, the scope of the problem is often limited by the course you are in and the material covered in that course. Working on a real world problem removes these boundaries and allows us to combine engineering disciplines to come to a coherent solution,” said Massey.
During the current semester, the midshipmen work to define the problem based on the customer requirements, research a range of possible design solutions by performing basic feasibility calculations, and propose an initial design.
Kavasis is looking forward to the final design scheduled for presentation during CAPSTONE Day next May.
NAVFAC EURAFCENT executes approximately $1 billion per year in construction, professional engineering and facilities services for the U.S. Navy, U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and NATO commands in countries throughout Europe, Africa and Central Command where the Navy is the DoD lead agent for military construction.
| Date Taken: | 11.05.2021 |
| Date Posted: | 11.05.2021 07:05 |
| Story ID: | 408745 |
| Location: | IT |
| Web Views: | 420 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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