SkyBuilt Power Press Releases
Alternative Power Sources Sought for Remote Bases
By Breanne Wagner
April 2007—Mobile
generators that produce renewable energy are about to be fielded
by the Army’s Rapid Equipping Force in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Available from commercial suppliers, these technologies not
only offer low-cost power, but may also cut the number of petroleum
tanker convoys traveling dangerous roads in Southwest Asia.
While hybrid vehicle technology and
fuel cell programs are still in research and development,
new, more mature programs such as wind and solar powered
generators are being touted as quick, mobile power solutions
by the Army’s Rapid
Equipping Force.
U.S. commanders in Iraq have asked the Pentagon to come up
with portable renewable energy sources, possibly in the form
of wind turbines and solar power. They are seeking ways to
cut back on the number of ground convoys that transport fuel
into Iraq.
The director of the Rapid Equipping Force, Col. Greg Tubbs,
asked a group of energy experts to find commercial products
that can be deployable within 18 months and that will reduce
fuel consumption by 40 percent.
“We want to do nothing to diminish mission capability,
but rather decrease the fuel need,” Dan Nolan, head of
the effort at the REF, said at an Institute for Defense and
Government Advancement tactical power conference.
The U.S. military relies heavily on fossil fuel. The Defense
Energy Supply Center said the military brought in a total of
1.29 million gallons of fuel per day in Iraq. From Kuwait alone,
U.S. troops bring in 890,000 gallons of fuel a day across the
southern border, Nolan told National Defense.
This massive fuel need became a dangerous liability when insurgents
began targeting convoys coming from Kuwait, Jordan and Turkey.
The result was an increase in improvised explosive device attacks
against them. Attacks were as high as 30 per week.
“There has always been strategic importance on reducing
dependence on energy we don’t control … but now
there is a tactical importance,” Nolan asserted.
The REF task force is focused on developing solutions for
forward operating bases, or places where the U.S. military
does not plan on having a permanent presence, Nolan said. This
created a need to find small, transportable devices.
Skybuilt Power
of Arlington, Va., is providing a mobile power station, which
has been dubbed the transportable hybrid electric power station.
The THEPS uses several different power sources, including
a wind turbine, solar panels, a diesel generator and storage
batteries. The system’s diesel generator uses “as little fuel
as possible” while decreasing the logistical tail from
fuel run Systems, Skybuilt Power CEO Dave Muchow, told National
Defense.
THEPS provides, on average, 5 kilowatts
of power output, depending on the type of units and the weather
conditions, Nolan said.
The system
can fit into a standard freight container. Muchow believes
that it can “put power
closest to the source,” he said. “Mobile power
Systems can more easily get to remote areas where roads are
blocked.”
Skybuilt will
make two variants for the Army, one mobile power station
that can be towed by a humvee, and one tactical operations
center that can act as a “manned
or unmanned operations center, a medical clinic, small office
or sleeping quarters,” Muchow said. “It can be
heated, air conditioned, outfitted with sensors.”
The first THEPS system was scheduled
for shipment to REF headquarters at Fort Belvoir, Va. in March,
where it was to undergo a 45-day testing schedule. The REF
is considering shipping units to Djibouti and Kuwait and then
to Iraq and Afghanistan.
A so-called “tactical bio-refinery” is another
mobile system being pursued to convert field waste to energy.
The system, which is built by Defense Life Sciences, McLean,
Va., will convert paper, plastic, cardboard and food slop into
bio-fuel gas to power a 60 kilowatt generator, Nolan said.
The food waste goes into a bioreactor, where industrial yeast
ferments it into ethanol, a “green fuel,” according
to Purdue University, whose scientists are working with Defense
Life Sciences. As an added benefit, the system helps to eliminate
much of the waste on the battlefield.
The bio-refinery can save 115 gallons of fuel for every ton
of waste converted, Nolan said. The first prototype has already
been built and the full system will be ready for demonstration
within 12 months, said Jerry Warner, founder of Defense Life
Sciences.
On this project, the REF worked with the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency.
Under a separate effort, DARPA is developing
a mobile integrated sustainable energy system, or MISER.
The idea is to take packaging materials — not garbage — from
the field and convert them to generator fuel, which could
eventually be used in a fuel cell.
Packaging materials account for a large
amount of field waste — more
than seven pounds per day per soldier. DARPA aims to reduce
the cost and logistical burden of disposing the plastic packaging
by harvesting it for energy.
The high-energy content of the plastic
packaging — close
to that of diesel fuel — makes it an ideal alternative
energy source. “At today’s level of packaging being
discarded, a military unit could achieve well over 100 percent
self-sufficiency for its generator fuel needs,” according
to a DARPA document.
The REF is also pursuing in-house technologies
to solve some of the power issues in the field. One example
is the intelligent generator set, which is being developed
by the Army’s
communications-electronics research development and engineering
center. It will act as a back-up power source for renewable
energy source Systems. The small 3 kilowatt tactical quiet
generator can power hybrid Systems at night or at times when
there isn’t a lot of wind or sun, said a researcher at
the Army Research Development and Engineering Command, who
asked not to be identified.
When the Army requires the extra help, the generator will
use only 0.4 gallons of fuel per hour when running at full
3 kilowatt power, the researcher added.
The generator will soon “be able to communicate through
a central distribution set when to turn on and off,” Nolan
said. Currently, a soldier has to manually turn a generator
on or off, which can waste energy. Plans call for future versions
to be able to operate and communicate within an intelligent
power distribution set.
Two of these generator sets have been ordered and received.
An additional system will be delivered to Fort Belvoir for
field support and trouble-shooting purposes, Nolan said.
Other sustainable power solutions such
as hybrid electric vehicles and hydrogen fuel cells — two of the most well
known and publicized alternative power sources — are
still being funded and developed to reduce fuel dependency.
Yet the focus has shifted away from these Systems.
Col. Don Gibson, director for integration at the Army Research,
Development and Engineering Command, found that fuel cells
and hybrid electric vehicles may not save the military as much
energy as once hoped. Slower development also means that they
will not be a viable solution to the urgent fuel convoy problem.
Gibson concluded that fuel cells are “inadequately ruggedized
for the military environment,” and that “significant
fuel savings are not likely.”
Fuel cells have also been criticized as being too expensive
and too new for military use.
However, fuel cells as part of a hybrid system are considered
to be a viable option for the future. Gibson believes that
fuel cells will first be used in small, portable Systems.
Hybrid electric vehicles are also touted
as an innovative power solution, but development has slowed
in recent years as a result of the complexity of adapting
the technology to the rugged military environment. While
the commercial market has made great strides in development
of hybrid vehicles, it’s
not so easy for the military.
Gibson said that “fuel savings are unproven” in
hybrid electric military vehicles. These vehicles also require
extensive military driving cycles and scenarios “to facilitate
efficient and reliable system design with reasonable and predictable
life.”
There is still a lot of work to be done if these vehicles
are to become a viable alternative power source. Analysts estimate
that at the earliest, military hybrid vehicles could enter
production in 2010.
Please email your comments to BWagner@ndia.org
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