Energy Benchmarking in the United States Air Force
Abstract
Establishing proper, long-term metrics for measuring energy use as climate change impacts demand patterns is critical for a military installation's adaptation to climate. Within the United States Air Force (USAF), the Installation Development Plan (IDP) is a comprehensive long-term base planning document, which includes an inventory of sustainable development goals including energy use and climate indicators. We analyzed 32 different IDPs among the various installations in the continental United States, identifying regional trends and behaviors in energy performance. We investigated the spatial variations in energy benchmarks relative to local climate conditions and found inconsistent energy measurement strategies between installations in the type of energy metrics they use to assess their resiliency. Additionally, we found that current USAF energy management strategies come predominantly from federal building regulations and executive order requirements, neglecting regional climate consultation as part of the IDP's long-term planning. Subsequently, we identify alternative long-term energy metrics from previous research and compare them against the current IDP strategy. These comparisons suggest a need for a blend of national and regional energy management benchmarks for organizations with locations in different geographical areas. The article concludes with proposing potential changes of energy measurement strategies and the best informative energy metrics, using select IDPs from the sample pool as case studies. The results of this study inform both municipal and military planners and engineers on the prominent types of energy metrics for resilience within a changing climate.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2020
- Bibcode:
- 2020AGUFMSY051..11H
- Keywords:
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- 6309 Decision making under uncertainty;
- POLICY SCIENCES & PUBLIC ISSUES;
- 6334 Regional planning;
- POLICY SCIENCES & PUBLIC ISSUES;
- 6339 System design;
- POLICY SCIENCES & PUBLIC ISSUES;
- 6344 System operation and management;
- POLICY SCIENCES & PUBLIC ISSUES