Investigation of Nanogrids for Improved Navy Installation Energy Resilience

Abstract

Military bases perform important national security missions. In order to perform these missions, specific electrical energy loads must have continuous, uninterrupted power even during terrorist attacks, adversary action, natural disasters, and other threats of specific interest to the military. While many global military bases have established microgrids that can maintain base operations and power critical loads during grid disconnect events where outside power is unavailable, many potential threats can cause microgrids to fail and shed critical loads. Nanogrids are of specific interest because they have the potential to protect individual critical loads in the event of microgrid failure. We present a systems engineering methodology that analyzes potential nanogrid configurations to understand which configurations may improve energy resilience and by how much for critical loads from a national security perspective. This then allows targeted deployment of nanogrids within existing microgrid infrastructures. A case study of a small military base with an existing microgrid is presented to demonstrate the potential of the methodology to help base energy managers understand which options are preferable and justify implementing nanogrids to improve energy resilience.