Distributed Energy-Resource Design Method to Improve Energy Security in Critical Facilities 

By Dan Eisenberg, PhD, Department of Operations Research, NPS

normally start the Resilience Corner stating that the term resilience is creeping into military directives, but recently the term feels less like it is creeping and more like it is having a renaissance. I started Resilience Corner to help make sense of a few energy and water resilience requirements for military installations. The term has since transitioned from niche requirements to a guiding principle across multiple DoD directorates. Given its increasing popularity and penchant for misinterpretation, I thought it would be helpful to summarize some “rules of thumb” on how to avoid traps when applying resilience concepts to military systems.

Rule 1: Focus on system function, not threats. The first step towards resilience is determining how military systems respond when faced with threats and adversaries. Associated analytic effort might overemphasize detailing the threat, rather than understanding what the systems do when stressed. Resilience engineering research recommends doing the opposite. Analytic effort should focus on understanding the function of the system we are trying to make resilient, rather than the threats we are trying to face. The goal is to identify all the different operational contexts that people will be faced with, even including those that are difficult to predict before they are experienced.

Rule 2: There is no such thing as a “resilience enabling” technology. Assuming we have a good understanding of how our systems work, the natural next step might be deploying new technologies expected to improve resilience, such as backup generators or microgrids. However, resilience is not necessarily gained by a backup generator, but by the ability to turn it on and use it when needed. This means there is no such thing as a “resilience enabling” technology, but rather a set of capacities to sense, anticipate, adapt to, and learn from past and future events. Resilience engineering research recommends focusing on improving these sociotechnical processes and matching improvements (which can still be new tech) to sociotechnical needs.

Rule 3: Fix what is broken and improve what works. Prioritizing limited resources in the DoD often means distributing funds to systems of the greatest need and mission-essential function. However, resilience is gained both by fixing known issues and by enhancing what is already working. For example, an installation might lack systems to monitor and manage energy use on base, but they might also have implemented an innovative work around using local capacity and expertise to assess energy needs. Making systems more complex with new monitoring systems might reduce adaptive capacity by taking resources away from practices that already work. Only funding the gaps overlooks an opportunity to learn from success stories and utilize them as a source of adaptive capacity. The goal should be maximizing adaptive capacity, rather than raising some minimum bar.