Redstone Arsenal Energy Security and Resiliency Reconnaissance Study

Guernsey was tasked with performing a preliminary assessment of the electric and thermal energy systems, loads, and energy resources at the Arsenal. The study identifies the best cost-effective projects required by the utility systems to comply with the Army's energy security and resiliency requirements, which state that energy must be provided to mission-critical facilities for 14 days and that energy systems at the Arsenal must be improved in resiliency.

Guernsey conducted a high-level condition assessment of the existing utility system and then developed an energy model of the Arsenal. The RSA Electrical and Thermal Energy Security model analyzes each mission-critical building for electric and thermal energy requirements and existing resources such as on-site generators, on-site boilers, and fuel storage tanks and provides four options for electric and ten options for thermal energy systems.

For electricity, we evaluated options for the microgrids and building-level distributed generation. For thermal, the options evaluated were replacing the existing heating system with a fuel oil (FO), electric, or natural gas (NG) heating system. We analyzed each option for the capital costs, annual O&M costs, and non-tangible environmental and operational impacts. The study showed that the building-level standalone generators are the most cost-effective option for electricity, and keeping the status quo of waste-to-energy steam and replacing NG with an FO heating system is the most economical for thermal systems to meet ESR requirements.