Demonstrations are sought of technologies or methodologies to improve the overall management of water resources, infrastructure, and assets to ensure a reliable, secure, and clean supply of water to support military missions.  

Of particular interest are solutions that: 

• Address challenges unique to enduring installations in regions of particular interest to DoW such as cold regions (e.g., arctic), remote locations (e.g., islands), and arid, water-scarce regions, or regions with growing water competition (e.g., southwest US).
• Consider ways to reduce operator/maintenance burden.
• Provide technologies to reduce or eliminate DoW potable water consumption (non-potable water consumption of lesser interest) and decrease potable water requirements within major use categories in mission buildings such as: system flushing, hydronic cooling, heat sinks, data centers, concrete, aircraft/machinery washing, irrigation, industrial cooling, steam, firefighting training, humidification and thermal regulation systems.
• Provide water storage innovation, minimum volume 8,000 gallons.
• Enhance desalination by addressing brine production and reducing energy requirements.
• Measure/track (potable, non-potable, alternative) water use at the activity level of granularity, including water use from leaks, system flushing, and other non-productive losses.
• Include innovative, technologies, materials, or processes that resist corrosion, reduce friction, reduce fouling, reduce chemical leaching, reduce leaks, and save energy in water treatment and distribution systems.
• Develop novel approaches to building-scale water reuse that significantly reduce the costs, complexity, and operational disruptions associated with installation and retrofitting.
• Offer innovative business models for financing resilience improvements at installations.
• Can clearly articulate a DoW end-user interested in adopting the technology upon completion of a successful demonstration.
• Consider complexities with facility control systems cybersecurity and handling of controlled unclassified information (CUI).
• Are verifiably at Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) between 5 and 7; or Adoption Readiness Levels (ARL) between 5 and 7 (energy.gov/ARL). 

Proposals that will not be considered responsive are solutions that: 

• Are already broadly deployed across the DoW enterprise.
• Require access to large volumes of complete high-quality DoW data.
• Solve a need for a particular installation but are not broadly applicable across the DoW enterprise. 

Water resilience solutions will help the DoW ensure a reliable, secure, and clean supply of water to support military installation operations and improve mission-informed capital investments. 

The DoW recognizes water as a key enabler of mission success globally as it operates and maintains installations in every conceivable climate and geographical region with various water sources and varying levels of robustness. Many of these locations face increasing water stress due to increased frequency of droughts, wildfires, and other natural hazards. These increased water threats lead to competition for water resources across different needs and missions. Also, the DoW’s aging water infrastructure poses an additional threat to ensuring reliable water supply. 

Proposers should be aware of the relevant UFCs, 4-010-06 Cybersecurity of Facility-Related Control Systems (ufc-4-010-06), and 3-550-04, Resilient Installation Microgrid Design (ufc-3-550-04). The proposed demonstrations are not required to comply with these UFCs.

Keith Welch 

Program Manager for Installation Energy & Water (EW) 

Environmental Security Technology Certification Program (ESTCP) 

E-mail: keith.a.welch3.civ@mail.mil