If the Department of War (DoW) is going to keep pace with its near-peer adversaries, it must find ways to reduce the time and cost involved in planning, designing, and constructing resilient infrastructure upgrades while simultaneously improving performance of the upgraded systems. Achieving these objectives requires optimal system selection and effective risk mitigation during system integration. To address this need, this project introduced the Platform-Based Design (PBD) method, a structured, hierarchical methodology adapted from other industrial sectors to the domain of energy system retrofits. The effectiveness of PBD is demonstrated through a techno-economic feasibility study comparing geothermal-coupled thermal energy networks (TEN) with conventional energy systems for heating, cooling, and powering 17 buildings at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland.

The analysis illustrates that the PBD approach enables rigorous, data-driven, sequential decision-making, resulting in a family of Pareto-optimal systems, among which the TEN emerged as the most promising solution. The selected TEN design integrates geothermal borefields, heat recovery heat pumps, photovoltaic (PV) arrays, and battery storage. Compared to the baseline system – gas heating combined with air-source chillers – the TEN reduces annual imported energy by 74% and peak electricity demand by 45%, achieves a levelized cost of energy of $0.210/kWh, and substantially enhances resilience. Life-cycle costs increase by approximately 6%, and initial investment costs are about 2.5 times higher than the baseline. However, if central plant infrastructure, district loops, and utility-scale PV and battery systems are privately funded and operated, the initial investment would fall below the baseline system cost.

Critical to achieving these significant performance improvements were detailed nonlinear dynamic simulations coupling geothermal heat transfer, energy system operation, and realistic feedback control logic. These simulations identified essential design modifications and control strategy refinements that substantially reduced energy use, peak demand, and compressor short-cycling, thereby improving durability and reliability—issues that would have been significantly more expensive to resolve during operation. 

It is recommended that DoW invest in transferring and scaling the PBD methodology to other installations. This entails developing standardized computational frameworks and component libraries as well as training industry in conducting PBD. Such investments would enable rapid, robust, reliable, and cost-effective retrofits, supporting DoW’s ambitious energy system modernization goals. (Project Completion - 2026)