Sept. 16, 2011 - The United States Department of Defense (DOD) is the single largest consumer of petroleum in the world. U.S. military operations are also the largest consumer of all forms of energy globally. Microgrids, which enable distributed energy generation at a localized scale including the ability to "island" themselves from larger utility grids, can shrink the amount of fossil fuels consumed to create electricity by networking generators as a system to maximize efficiency. Microgrids enable military bases -- both stationary and tactical -- to sustain operations no matter what is happening on the larger utility grid or in the theater of war.
According to a new report from Pike Research, the capacity of military microgrids will grow at a rate of 739% between 2011 and 2017, increasing from 38 megawatts (MW) to 316 MW during that period, under a baseline forecast scenario. The cleantech market intelligence firm expects that, under a more aggressive adoption scenario, stationary and mobile military microgrid capacity could reach as high as 817 MW during the same timeframe.
"The military's primary concern is disruption of service from utility transmission and distribution lines," says senior analyst Peter Asmus. "The lack of control and ownership of these lines -- and the uneven quality of power service regionally throughout the United States -- has prompted the DOD to reexamine the existing electricity service delivery model. This analysis has led the DOD to the inevitable conclusion that the best way to bolster its ability to secure power may well be through microgrid technology it can own and control." read more>>>
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