Defense Installation Energy Resilience for Changing Operational Requirements

Abstract

We propose a methodology to determine the impact of different potential mission scenarios upon energy resilience for mission-critical loads attached to a military base’s microgrid infrastructure. The proposed methodology applies to any installation with changing operational states that has energy-resilience requirements. The proposed methodology may be used by energy managers to account for potential mission scenarios that a base may be part of, followed by assessing the microgrid energy resilience to supply the critical loads for said mission scenarios, especially where the external grid power may be unavailable and/or damage to microgrid components may be present. In the event a microgrid design is unable to provide sufficient electrical energy, distributed energy resources and energy storage systems including renewable energy resources may be added to improve energy resilience. A case study is conducted on a fictitious representative military base, microgrid design, and changing mission demands to demonstrate the application of the proposed methodology. This article contributes a methodology for energy managers to evaluate energy resilience using microgrids by accounting for potential mission scenarios, their energy requirements, resulting energy preparedness, and recommendations for improvement, as necessary.

Keywords

• microgrid
• resilience
• mission engineering
• systems engineering
• energy storage