Defense should follow private sector's energy efficiency lead.

AuthorWassman, Bob
PositionENERGY VIEWPOINT

The private sector offers valuable lessons that can save the Defense Department energy--and thus, money--as it operates its more than 300,000 buildings.

With 1.4 million men and women on active duty, plus 718,000 civilian personnel, the Defense Department is the nation's largest employer. To house its operations, it occupies more than 2.2 billion square feet of space valued at more than $590 billion. It spends more than $4 billion a year on "facility energy" to power these buildings; so the potential savings are substantial.

Recognizing the need for efficiency, private-sector organizations with large building portfolios have quickly and cost-effectively employed new technology in their infrastructure. The Defense Department needs to do the same.

Two factors drive innovation: motivation and the ability to implement.

In the private sector, the motivation for efficiency is driven by one thing--profit. Every dollar that companies can squeeze out of energy use is another dollar of profit. It's just that simple.

A business case analysis is performed before pilot-testing a technology at a specific location. If the technology and the business case are compelling enough, a small-scale pilot is in order. If a small-scale pilot test--typically one to three buildings--proves successful, a larger test is conducted before full-scale deployment.

Walmart went through this type of process and in April announced plans to purchase energy-efficient LED ceiling lighting fixtures for new locations in the United States, Asia, Latin America and the United Kingdom. The new fixtures will use 40 percent less energy than lighting sources currently used in stores and will help reduce Walmart's energy intensity--kilowatt hour [kWh] per square foot--globally 20 percent by 2020.

LEDs have become an integral part of Walmart's energy-efficiency model and play a key role in achieving energy cost savings; furthermore, these innovations enable Walmart to pass the savings down to customers in the form of lower prices. Lower prices drive sales and sales drive revenue. At an organization like Walmart, performance is measured in terms of revenue, expenses and profit.

The main sales floor lighting represents approximately 90 percent of each building's total lighting usage, which means this implementation will reduce energy use per store by more than 5 percent in the United States. The change to LED lighting alone will have a significant impact on profit, according to information...

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