Mason & Hanger's Bari Ewing, Mechanical Project Engineer and Rob McAtee, Director, Energy and Sustainability presented 'How to Successfully Conduct Energy Security Assessments' for DoD installations. Mason & Hanger was a Gold Sponsor of the SAME 2019 Southeast Tri-Regional Joint Engineer Training Symposium (JETS) in Savannah, Georgia.
Energy and Water Security: Start with a Plan
The frequency of extreme weather events and deliberate hostile actions have shown that our utility infrastructure is vulnerable to extended disruptions. These disruptions will certainly impact economic activities and put citizens at risk, but could also prevent our armed forces from carrying out their missions at a time they may be most needed. To address these threats, numerous federal agencies have required installations to assess their mission readiness in the event of prolonged utility outages. With these new requirements, the traditional approach of building-by-building standby generation becomes difficult to implement. And historically, there has been relatively little focus on water, so few installations have even the most basic amount of storage.
Mason & Hanger identified the current directives, mandates, and requirements for DoD organizations to assess and mitigate threats to energy and water security. Sustainability leaders Bari and Rob, from Mason & Hanger demonstrated the energy security assessment process and showed how this approach impacts an installation's comprehensive energy security plan. As part of this process, the team outlined commonly-overlooked vulnerabilities that can prevent mission readiness. In addition, they provided guidance on assessing priorities and building consensus among various stakeholders for which are critical-mission facilities. Finally, the presentation highlighted funding opportunities for improvements that increase resiliency and lead to operational cost reductions.
