US Army is getting ready to disconnect from the grid

By Michael Smith (Veshengro)

By the end of 2011 the United States Army will have ended its dependence on the grid at several major homeland bases. It is also sending technology to Afghanistan that’s designed to minimize energy consumption of generators on bases there. The goal is to reduce the number of fuel deliveries that convoys need to be make across dangerous parts of the country.

The first field-ready “microgrid” will link a base’s generators to a central controller that will turn them on and off depending on if they’re actually needed. A system has been tested in Ft. Irwin, Calif. The Army hopes to deploy it by the summer.

Its one of a number of off-grid and microgrid initiatives being tested by the military that will prove the potential of off-grid energy to serve medium-sized communities and may then make its way into civilian use.

The Army is preparing to supervise joint technology testing at three homeland bases next year that will allow the services to measure the effectiveness of microgrids and their potential to make energy infrastructures more efficient and cyber-secure.

The problem I can see is that they will not be able to make those microgrids secure against cycber attacks, regardless of all the talk and hype and this is where the vulnerability, in the same was as with the general “smart” grid lies.

As soon as we rely on computers and especially on networked computers to control the turning on and off of such things, etc., we are open to attack. Personally, I still think that we are implementing those smart grid technologies at our peril. Bring back the human hand. Yes, it is a little slower and humans can fall asleep but they are not going to be falling prey to an attack from cyberspace.

The Defense Department has begun exploring microgrid technology for military bases at home because of their potential to make installations more energy efficient and secure should disaster or cyber intrusions strike the commercial grid, the say.

But if I consider the attacks against military computer networks and the success rate of penetration then this is something that would not make me feel safe at all. Far from it.

Harold Sanborn, the Army Corps of Engineers’ technical manager for the JCTD, said the microgrid technology being installed at the bases will integrate energy from existing diesel-power generators and renewable sources to power daily operations. The systems, which will provide the energy infrastructure with the situational awareness needed to more efficiently regulate power distribution, will also be cyber-secured when connected to the commercial grid.

The military needs to wake up to the fact that while they may be going off grid using diesel generators they need to green their footprint and that can only be done if and when they embrace more of the renewable energy technologies.

In fact the military could be leading the way and while it is said that this technology of microgrids will be finding its way into civilian applications and use diesel generators are not the answer.

There would be, in the main, no need to use anything else but renewable power sources if we would just wake up to the fact, including and especially the military, that 110 volts AC in the US, or 220/240 volts AC in UK and Europe, is not needed whatsoever and that we could do it all by 12 volts DC.

We need to rethink our electricity usage and here especially here as regards of voltage and current type.

© 2011