Project description
Deployed camps are heavily reliant on diesel fuel imposing significant energy security burdens, high costs, and transport through sensitive areas. Having a reliable fuel supply also ensures that combat readiness of armament and military equipment complexes ensuring the vital functions of troops in the zone of military operations can be maintained.
This project is a continuation of the NATO Science for Peace and Security Project G5525 aiming to demonstrate how energy data collected in a harmonized way can achieve and quantify fuel reduction strategies in military operations and provide operational energy support to civil customers in territories where stationary power has been destroyed (for example in Ukraine). Along with monitoring and trialling energy management strategies in various deployed camps and temporary power for building infrastructure, the multi-year project’s ultimate goal is to:
- Develop and validate tools to provide operational energy support, helping maintain military readiness and identify suitable energy supply solutions for civilian use in areas with damaged infrastructure (i.e., Ukraine);
- Monitor and trial energy management strategies across deployed camps and military operations;
- Establish energy planning tools, key performance indicators, and demonstrated solutions to reduce fossil fuel dependency in military operations.
Through the multi-national harmonized efforts, lessons identified and recommendations for suitable systems to achieve reduced diesel dependency can also be shared and as well facilitate interoperability among the NATO member countries. Co-led by Canada and Ukraine, this project brings together a large scientific and academic team, with multiple NATO Allies participating.
Post-project, NATO country Project Director (NPD) will continue supporting energy metering studies and training on metering and simulation. Ukraine will use modelling tools to identify efficient energy systems and train its forces. NPD will also collaborate with partners like the Energy Security Centre of Excellence, offer annual or biannual training for camp energy managers and planners.
The project co-directors are listed below with their respective contact details. Canada is the NATO country project director with Ukraine as the partner country project director. Belgium, Denmark, France, Lithuania, Slovenia, Netherlands, United Kingdom and United States of America are the other country co-directors.
| Name | Institution | Country |
|---|---|---|
| Mr. Martin Kegel | NRCan, CanmetENERGY | Canada |
| Volodymyr Ievdokimov | Pukhov Institute for Modelling in Energy Engineering | Ukraine |
| Emilie Staes | Belgian Army Staff / Transformation / MILENG | Belgium |
| Martin Enevoldsen | Danish Ministry of Defence – Acquisition and logistics (DALO) | Denmark |
| Remi Dillard | French Army Staff / Infrastructure and operational energy division | France |
| Jeroen Velthuis | Royal Dutch Army / MILENG | Netherlands |
| Gintaras Labutis | Military Academy of Lithuania | Lithuania |
| Robert Sipec | Ministry of Defence Slovenia-Directorate of Logistics | Slovenia |
| Timothy Jackson | Defence Science and technology Laboratory (DSTL) | UK |
| Jonathan Goebel | US Army Engineer Research and Development Centre (ERDC) | USA |
End users in the project include:
- NATO Energy Security Centre of Excellence
- Military Engineering Centre of Excellence
- European Union Military Staff
Metering and monitoring
Collected energy consumption data is rarely harmonized among NATO nations, resulting in differing conclusions and adding to the challenge of identifying a suitable energy reduction solution. This project continues to establish a common understanding of camp energy requirements and end uses by developing a non-intrusive, harmonized energy monitoring and data collection system.
Each project co-director has a universal metering and monitoring kit to measure deployed camp energy consumption at different levels. A weather station is included with each kit to enable the normalization of data and understand the trends and key performance indicators of a deployed camp’s electricity consumption.
Training is provided regularly to the different participants including engineers, electricians and generator technicians.
The video below provides more in-depth information about the energy metering and monitoring process.
Deployed camp energy metering and monitoring
Transcript
Hi, my name is Eric McDonald. I’m a young engineering researcher for Natural Resources Canada.
Under the NATO Science for Peace and Security Project (SPS) on Deployed Camp Energy Efficiency, I led the development and trialing of a universal energy metering solution to gain a better understanding of deployed camp energy consumption.
In partnership with our Canadian Armed Forces, before the start of the SPS Camp Energy Efficiency Project, we developed a deployable Metering and Monitoring System to help increase utility efficiency and reduce logistic impacts while increasing energy awareness on deployed camps.
Through the NATO SPS project, we have adapted the metering kits to be universal, non-intrusive, and enabling a rapidly deployable capability to meter and monitor deployed camps’ energy consumption for NATO and partner co-directing nations as well as end users in the project.
In total, we have also provided training on using and understanding the monitored energy consumption. During the NATO SPS project, we have helped train 50 engineers, electricians and generator technicians on the energy metering and monitoring.
The metering system provides an easy plug and play option to monitor the complete power requirements of a deployed camp, helping define requirements to size power plants and support studies that aid in procurement processes and in the design of the power plants of the future.
Through the feedback by the co-directors and end users in the project, an energy management software was recently coupled with the energy monitoring kits to dashboard or visualize the data in simple ways to facilitate informed decision-making and troubleshooting in the field.
This enables immediate identification of real-time modifications to increase utility efficiency during multi-domain operations.
I will now provide a recent scenario on how the energy metering helped reduce the fuel consumption in a deployed camp.
During a recent Canadian Armed Forces exercise, the monitoring system was trialed with the new dashboarding system. It highlighted the ability to react in real time to energy events using key performance indicators and access to live data.
Canadian Armed Forces camp planners designed the power plant for three 60 kW generators based off the camp’s estimated power requirements and anticipated climate. A total of four 60 kW generators were brought into theatre.
But during the exercise, it quickly became apparent that all four generators were required to power the camp, leading to higher fuel consumption. By using the dashboard, it was easy to identify where all the energy was going. And investigating the reason with the camp energy manager, it was identified that the heating equipment used in theatre was their electric Environmental Conditioning Units and not the diesel heaters that were indicated for the camp design.
To reduce the power requirements of this section, the total number of Environmental Conditioning Units was reduced from six to three, and the temperature set points of the units were set back from 25 to 21 degrees Celsius.
The system was still able to provide adequate heating, maintaining comfort conditions, while reducing the peak load to only require three generators and achieving 25% fuel savings.
As a young engineering researcher, I truly appreciated the opportunity that I was given in the NATO SPS Camp Energy Efficiency Project, specifically the opportunity to participate in Capable Logistician 2019.
I worked with multiple nations in implementing better energy management practices and was able to understand and appreciate the challenges and importance in developing a harmonized and interoperable energy metering solution to better understand power and energy requirements of a deployed camp.
Deployed camp energy simulation tool
Energy simulation tools are a cost-effective approach to gaining further understanding of a camp’s energy end use without going into detailed sub-metering. However, simulation tools can be either too complex (requiring specialized personnel and extensive training) or too simple (not taking time-varying load profiles into account).
To meet the required balance between a simplistic energy simulation tool and a sufficient refinement for accurate and conclusive assessments, a simulation interface was developed.
Creating a database of shelter energy models and energy efficient technologies, the interface allows the user to quickly develop a custom camp energy model and to input only the pertinent information related to energy consumption. The user can quickly estimate the energy saving potential and cost benefit of incorporating efficiency measures in a specific region and time period.
Through the NATO Science for Peace and Security project, the Forces Operational Resource Calculator for Energy - Simulation (FORCE-SIM) was developed and validated with various deployed camp energy metering efforts.
The video below provides a detailed overview of the FORCE-SIM tool.
Deployed camp energy simulation tool
Transcript
My name is Stéphanie Breton and I’m a young engineering researcher at Natural Resources Canada.
Under the NATO Science for Peace and Security Project on Deployed Camp Energy Efficiency, I have led the development of FORCE-SIM, a deployed camp energy simulation tool.
FORCE-SIM is a simulation tool used to estimate the power and energy requirements of deployed camps.
The software is modular, allowing users to build and simulate custom camps, of various sizes and configurations, in any region of the world.
The main advantage of FORCE-SIM is its user-friendliness. No in-depth expertise of building simulation is required to use the tool. It’s designed to replicate how a camp planner goes about designing their camp, with limited commonly-known inputs.
The balance between default and custom user inputs makes the tool highly flexible.
Features in the FORCE-SIM tool include shelter types, camp occupancy profiles, and heating and cooling equipment.
A new feature I worked on is to give the user the ability to simulate hybrid power plants to evaluate different camp energy efficiency options. The hybrid power plant options include solar power, wind power, battery storage and variable-speed diesel generators.
Camp planners can then evaluate different alternatives to reduce diesel consumption.
Through this project, I got to use metered data from actual deployed camps to develop and validate simulation models. I not only deepened my expertise in modelling, but also gained experience linking real-world data to a simulation tool.
FORCE-SIM is definitely not a one-person feat.
I had the chance to work with and manage a team of multiple computer science and software engineering interns to implement different features.
It has been rewarding to have the opportunity to work on real-world applications, and I’m proud to be contributing to improving energy awareness and ultimately the effectiveness in the Forces through the development of FORCE-SIM.
Energy management studies
Several energy management studies are underway to in different camps collecting energy data, predicting power and energy consumption and identifying fossil fuel reduction strategies and technologies to demonstrate.
Key Recommendations
- Right-size or remove diesel generators and shift loads to host nation power wherever possible.
- Replace soft wall shelters with hard wall structures and improve ventilation through heat recovery systems.
- Enhance energy awareness through training, SOPs, posters, reminders, and proper temperature management.
- Implement occupancy sensors, window/door sensors, and set back schedules to reduce unnecessary heating/cooling.
- Strengthen energy monitoring by installing submeters, automating data collection, and training personnel.
- Explore solar PV, solar thermal, and geothermal systems as best practice demonstrations in Ceri.
Contact CanmetENERGY in Varennes
To learn more about this project, email Martin Kegel at martin.kegel@nrcan-rncan.gc.ca.