Energy security innovation at industrial and military installations: A multicriteria analysis with regulatory, environmental, economic, and other emergent conditions

Energy security is the assured access to reliable supplies of energy and the ability to protect and deliver sufficient energy to meet operational needs. Energy managers for a military or industrial installation are tasked to select a preferred strategy or investment of energy sources and technologies to provide adequate energy quality and quantity for critical missions over the coming decades. The energy managers must also consider objectives related to integrating multiple fuel sources, reducing energy consumption, reducing foreign energy inputs, and using renewable resources. The ability to pair energy sources and technologies allows for innovation in energy planning and investment. However, emergent and future conditions such as regulations, energy availabilities, technology advances, geopolitical events, catastrophic weather and destructive events, and others describe the uncertainty and sources of risk inherent in the planning setting and these conditions must be considered in prioritizing investment. For large installations, stakeholders that are representatives from the utility companies, building tenants, high-level governing officials, and other relevant participants need to be included in the planning process and are integral for identifying the relevant emergent and future conditions that should be considered. Some emergent conditions may be evidence-based projections derived from geographic, regulatory, geopolitical, and other driving forces. Other emergent conditions could reflect the advocacy positions of the various stakeholders. This effort describes recent efforts for including stakeholder scenarios of emergent and future conditions into a formal multicriteria decision model to understand how different assumptions of the future alter a prioritization of investment alternatives. The approach identifies what scenarios most affect the prioritization of investment alternatives, and what investment alternatives are most opportunistic or vulnerable across- - the scenarios. Influential scenarios then become a focus for appropriate research and modeling, leading to innovation in selecting a preferred investment alternative that is robust across the stakeholder scenarios. Elements of a case study demonstration prioritizing energy security investment alternatives for three buildings on a military installation are presented. The case study describes the relevant planning criteria and a set of scenarios that is used to identify opportunities for innovation. The results of the demonstration are a select subset of high performing investment alternatives and a small set of scenarios in need of additional modeling and negotiation. The approach and case study elements are of interest to government, military, and industry representatives engaged in the planning and preliminary engineering of energy security systems for the purposes of technology innovation, negotiation, and investment.