“Advanced Conservation Voltage Reduction: A Department of Defense Perspective” by Dr. Cyrus Jabbari

The Department of Defense and the U.S. Army Installation Management Command (IMCOM) provide guidelines to military installations to actively engage in reducing energy usage, create energy efficient and energy savings plans, and when possible, look for alternative sources of energy (e.g., solar, wind). In most cases, energy savings are dependent on the replacement of older non-efficient equipment with new and more efficient devices which often require unavailable resources.

When the Fort Myer team was presented by the utility company Dominion with the concept of Conservation Voltage Reduction (CVR), Fort Myer decided to apply this research project to its power grids. The principle behind the CVR project is to reduce the voltage at the points of consumption to a safe minimum level thereby decreasing waste energy. The analysis of utility billings over a two-year period indicates a minimum annual reduction of 3% in energy consumption (measured in kilowatt hours). This cost reduction is especially significant for installations that have a high rate of electric commodity.

Although it creates additional energy savings, the MicroCVR project that reduces voltage levels further down the line and at the building levels was deemed economically not feasible to the Government due to lack of experienced operators and maintenance costs.

“Utilization of Advanced Conservation Voltage Reduction for Energy Reduction on DoD Installations” by Mr. Bruce Ensley

The Department of Defense (DoD) continues to be the largest federal consumer of energy and needs to reduce its energy consumption. Supplying energy to DoD buildings is a significant portion of the DoD budget. Current energy conservation methods principally require changes in human behavior or require significant investment in new technology. Changing human behavior has proved challenging, oftentimes unsustainable, and requires significant increasing investments in technology development. Effecting these changes is difficult in the current fiscal environment. Conservation Voltage Reduction (CVR) is an automated system-level voltage reduction technology that optimizes voltage to continuously reduce energy consumption for devices connected to the distribution system. MicroCVR builds off the same electrical principles and effectively performs the same function at the building level but improves performance by using high-speed voltage regulation and appliance level monitoring. Combining these two technologies is an innovative, state-of-the-art approach which has not been made commercially available yet. Dominion Energy showed that the installation’s electrical distribution systems can reduce annual energy between 3-5%, work with high variation loads caused by renewable generation, improve reliability, and enhance and secure critical facility loads.

Dr. Cyrus Jabbari is an electrical engineer within the Directorate of Public Works at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall (JBM-HH). The Directorate of Public Works at JBM-HH is responsible for the operational sustainment of the Army garrisons at Fort Myer (VA), Fort Leslie McNair (Washington, DC) as well as the Marine base Henderson Hall (Arlington, VA). Among many duties within the Department of Public Works, Dr. Jabbari oversees, as a government contracting officer's representative, the ongoing operation of the Utility Privatization contract with Dominion Energy. He is a Senior Member of IEEE and is a registered Professional Engineer in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Cyrus’s professional background includes several years of work in academia, industry and consulting. He has been with JBM-HH as an Army Civilian since 2009. Cyrus holds a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA.

Mr. Bruce Ensley brings over 20 years of experience in various analytic and leadership roles within Dominion Energy. Prior to joining Dominion Energy, Bruce worked in federal procurement operations for the Departments of Energy and Defense. Currently at Dominion Energy’s affiliate, Dominion Voltage Inc., Bruce combines his years of acquisition experience, analytical skills, energy market, regulatory knowledge, and understanding of the voltage control characteristics to determine feasibility for Dominion Voltage, Inc.’s EDGE® voltage control solution for electric distribution system operators. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the College of William and Mary (1990) and his master’s degree in business administration from Virginia Commonwealth University (1996).