Air Force leads DOD in 2015 energy awards during best year ever

  • Published
  • By Kevin Elliott
  • AFCEC Public Affairs
TYNDALL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. --  The Department of Energy recently announced the winners of the 2015 Federal Energy Management Program awards with the Air Force leading the Department of Defense with its most wins ever.

Of the nine government agencies that won 32 total awards, the Air Force won 10 across three categories; the Army won six and the Navy three.

The Air Force Civil Engineer Center received nomination packages from around the Air Force in May, evaluated them and submitted the maximum-allowed 15 best nominations for consideration by FEMP.

And the winners are:

Career Exceptional Service Award Winner
Timothy Pugh of Air Force Space Command at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado, won for his 37-year Air Force engineering career, which includes 22 years supporting AFSPC energy initiatives at base and major command levels.

Program Award Winners
The Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station, Colorado, energy team of Dino Bonaldo, Jason Cook, Jerry Milliman, Tyler Nielsen and Brian O'Leary formed and implemented the CMAFS Energy Management Strategy to reduce the station's fiscal 2014 energy consumption by 8.6 percent relative to fiscal 2013, and shrink its energy bill by $51,000, or 3.4 percent.

Morgan Benson, Jonathan Dalsfoist, Richard l. Hiatt and Griffith Turpin of the 673rd Civil Engineeri Squadron at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, focused on implementing projects and initiatives at the base to improve facility heating and lighting efficiencies, along with reducing associated energy consumption. As a result, JBER garnered energy savings of more than $2 million in fiscal 2014, and reducing base energy consumption and energy intensity by 42 percent and 64 percent respectively. 

At Hill Air Force Base, Utah, the energy team of David Abbott, Karen G. Bastian, Mary Boyle, Anthony Hiatt and Brian Walsh partnered with local utility Rocky Mountain Power through the utility's Watt-Smart Business program to generate $269,897 in incentives and bill credits for the base, and saved nearly 1.8 million kilowatt hours of power.

Stephen Mellin at Air Force Space Command's Cape Cod Air Force Station, Massachusetts, partnered with local utility-funded organization Cape Light Compact to conduct an energy assessment at the air station. From these assessments, $300,000 in projects was identified, including lighting upgrades and the installation of variable frequency drives for electric motors. The Cape Light Compact funded this work at no additional cost to the Air Force. The projects deliver $150,000 in annual energy savings. These efforts, combined with light emitting diode, or LED, lighting upgrades and the installation of two 450-ton chillers with plate and frame cooling systems reduced CCAFS's electricity usage by 21 percent, compared to the fiscal 2003 baseline.

In Nevada, the Reno Air National Guard Base energy team of Irving Gellman, James Lindsay, Glen Martel, James Speth and Brian Woodford established a base-wide energy awareness and action program that included reducing energy consumption during "no-heat, no-cool" weeks of the year, where artificial climate control is less necessary, as well as regular walk-throughs of base facilities, looking for savings opportunities. The policies, strategies and processes implemented at Reno ANGB helped reduce the base's fiscal 2014 energy intensity by 5.5 percent compared to fiscal 2013 and 36 percent compared to the fiscal 2003 baseline.   Water intensity was also reduced by 60 percent compared to the fiscal 2007 baseline.

Josh Jones at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, North Carolina, implemented a robust energy awareness campaign that leveraged the Air Force's Energy Action Month efforts and focused on reducing energy usage in daily operations. This effort contributed to an energy intensity reduction of 54 percent since the fiscal 2003 baseline, as well as a 42-percent water intensity reduction compared to the 2007 baseline. Other projects at Seymour Johnson included installation of remote heating, ventilation and air conditioning control and monitoring systems, replacement of parking lot and walkway lights with  LED fixtures and implementing new HVAC system controls to increase system lifecycles.

Project Awards
At Royal Air Force Mildenhall, England, Gary Hodson, Nicholas Lobar, Michael Odenweller, Steve Perry and Jack Quin implemented the Dynamic Burner Management Unit, a solid-state electronic boiler controller that optimizes the firing pattern of gas or oil boilers by monitoring their flow and return. DBMU extends the period between natural firing sequences in the equipment without loss in overall heat performance; by reducing the number of firing sequences over a given period, the amount of oil or gas being consumed decreases. DBMU was implemented in two buildings at Mildenhall with a total fuel oil savings of 2,954 gallons, or $10,368, which amounts to a simple payback of 10.5 months for the innovation.

John Kiger and the energy team at Eglin Air force Base, Florida, combined the base energy management control system with real-time pricing to save 181,003 million British Thermal Units of electricity and natural gas in 131 buildings, garnering a net savings of $1.5 million for Eglin in fiscal 2014. The project has a simple payback of two years, and was used as a benchmark in the new Air Force Civil Engineer Center EMCS playbook.

Just outside the Chihuahuan desert of Del Rio, Texas, Tammie Harris and the energy staff at Laughlin Air Force Base xeriscaped base landscaping to incorporate native plant species and reduce the installation's irrigation requirements. By removing water-intensive turf grass and installing a centrally controlled smart irrigation system, the project has already reduced the base's water costs by more than 30 percent against the fiscal 2007 baseline and nearly 18 percent compared to fiscal 2013. Total water consumption has been reduced 10 percent from the 2007 baseline.

DOE will hold an awards ceremony later this year in Washington D.C. To see the complete list of winners, go to http://energy.gov/eere/femp/2015-federal-energy-and-water-management-award-winners.