Air Force identifies top energy conservation projects

  • Published
  • By Christine A. Walker
  • AFCESA
HQ AFCESA --  Imagine your utility bill costing approximately a million dollars a year. It's a reality at Air Force installations, but Air Force energy experts are cutting costs and saving money by making bases more energy efficient. The Air Force Facility Energy Center has identified 590 candidate energy conservation projects totaling $331 million that have a positive return on investment. However, because of funding limitations only the top energy savers will be considered. The active Air Force allocated $218 million for energy conservation savings investments for fiscal year 2012, much less than the total available projects with savings potential.

The primary project candidate list is generated in April each year for the following fiscal year, with a supplemental review in November, if needed to backfill "broken" projects. The AFFEC team uses economics to determine the best energy savings projects. The base project programmers must provide key data, such as the savings-to-investment ratio, simple payback, and amount of dollars and energy saved annually, along with the normal construction project data.

"The major commands are notified which of the candidate projects the AFFEC is interested in evaluating for funding. They will in turn upload the requisite documentation for the AFFEC to validate the project's predicted performance. AFFEC works closely with the commands to correct deficiencies in their data and documentation," said Rick Stokes, an AFFEC Capital Investment Program Manager.

AFFEC's Capital Investment Team and the major commands analyze the projects to determine what is missing from the economic requirements and allow the commands time to make the proper corrections to make the list of candidate projects and compete for ranking placement.

"The candidate projects show the potential for saving 2.5 trillion Btus. By integrating the cost of Btus with the potential dollar savings from the investment, the AFFEC Capital Investment team ranks projects from highest to lowest return on investment," said Mike Ritts, AFFEC Capital Investment Branch chief. This ranking procedure gets the Air Force the best energy projects for the available money.

It takes two years for the energy savings impact to be realized while the project is built and tracked. Bradley Scott, another Energy Program Manager for AFFEC indicates the 350 projects recommended for funding in fiscal year 2011, most of which will save natural gas and electricity, could save $25 to $30 million a year over the next 17 years.

The AFFEC team at AFCESA should have the final energy saving candidate project list validated in May to be released to the major commands for incorporation into their Base Integrated Priority List.