The Department of War (DoW) lags behind the commercial sector in deployment of automated demand response (ADR). This essential technology enables installations to participate in the dynamic balancing of the power grid. Today, ADR is required to optimize the use of renewable energy, maximizing economic benefits and revenue opportunities of grid operator and utility ADR programs. IPKeys Power Partners developed a guidance document with the methodology and cyber controls that are required to interconnect gird operators and utilities with DoW building control systems. The project team deployed a certified OpenADR 2.0 gateway, programed the building control systems to accept the utility commands and enrolled the facility in an annual revenue generating program offered by local utilities and/or grid operators. This will provide a single Open Standard method of connecting DoW sites to their utilities, eliminating the site-by-site integration issues that are typical with proprietary solutions. It also provides a single Federally reviewed cyber secure standard that can be used across all Services.

The objective of this project was to demonstrate the feasibility of using OpenADR 2.0 – an open-standard web services-based system to allow machine-to-machine communication between DoW facilities and energy providers – to enable secure participation in grid balancing/demand management programs.

Although the technology has been commercially available, the cyber and network permission barriers have greatly slowed the adoption of automated demand response within the DoW. A documented path forward and accredited hardware for each of the Services gives other facilities a proven methodology to implement that is tailored to each Service’s requirements.

Automated demand response is very inexpensive. Typically, costs are less than $20K for a military installation while annual revenues in California for 1MW of load shed are worth $80K per year. The earnings in Hawaiian Electric Company’s Fast DR program for 1MW could approach $100K per year. These types of programs will typically provide a less than six-month payback and provide an essential grid service to enable the addition of on-site generation to improve energy resilience. U.S. Marine Corps Hawaii estimated that 2MW load shed was easily achievable with less than $20K additional investment. Overall benefits to the DoW could exceed $200 Million per year. 

The most critical step in deploying ADR is the cyber accreditation. Since ADR devices require network access, they present a potential vulnerability, and the assessment of risk can vary. In ESTCP project EW-201401, the team attempted to get an authority to operate on DoW networks using the Risk Management Framework process. Although it proved feasible, the effort to complete this accreditation was more than the host facilities were willing to undertake. For this pilot the project team used a cellular modem and avoided all contact with DoW networks. This approach is in compliance with DoW INSTRUCTION 8420.01 on Commercial Wireless Local-Area Network (WLAN) Devices, Systems, and Technologies. Paragraph 3.13 (2) which allows for unclassified WLAN backhaul exceptions, permitting the deployment of WLAN technologies for backhaul or site-to-site connectivity without direct user device interconnectivity, thus exempting them from the standards outlined in the issuance. (Project Completion - 2024)