(December 18, 2024) - Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), in partnership with DoD’s Environmental Security Technology Certification Program (ESTCP) - focused on validating promising, innovative technologies that target the most urgent environmental needs of the Department of Defense - awarded three contracts to prototype novel technologies for facility air conditioning and domestic water heating applications. The goal of the effort is to reduce installation energy consumption for heating and cooling needs, and enable DoD bases to reduce their carbon footprint and GreenHouse Gas (GHG) emissions - and counter the approximately $4 billion spent annually on DoD facility energy costs.
Competitively selected out of a pool of 40 contenders, the selected companies include: GTI Energy Inc, Blue Fronter LLC, and Intellihot LLC, which will install and demonstrate their technologies in buildings on DoD bases.
GTI Energy, based in Des Plaines, Illinois, is installing and monitoring air-water Lync heat pumps for domestic hot water use, to be installed in barracks at Fort Gregg-Adams and Fort Moore. GTI will also install and monitor the performance of four dual-fuel rooftop hybrid units to be installed in the Applied Instruction Hanger building at Fort Gregg-Adams.
Blue Frontier, based in Boca Raton, Florida, is installing a Liquid Desiccant-Enhanced Dedicated Outdoor Air System (LD-DOAS), which offers moisture removal efficiency, energy storage, and digital twin reliability in the unit. The LD-DOAS will be installed in the commissary/community spouses club at Fort Moore, Georgia and a bowling alley in Westover Air Reserve Base in Massachusetts.
Intellihot, based in Galesburg, Illinois, is providing a tankless heat pump water heater technology to be installed in the base recreation building at the Westover Air Reserve Base in Massachusetts.
With more than 500 bases under its purview, comprising ~300,000 buildings dispersed across diverse climate zones, the DoD requires reliable access to hot water, heating, and cooling systems. The DoD spends approximately $4 billion annually on facility energy consumption, of which, 95 percent, is allocated for essential services including lighting, heating, cooling systems for buildings, and provision of hot water for personnel needs.
These facilities represent 33 percent of the Department’s total infrastructure energy consumption, which comprises more than 150,000 space heating and cooling units alongside 70,000 water heaters. DoD space and water heating operations can contribute substantially, up to more than 45% of a building's overall energy consumption.
Recognizing the need to enhance efficiency and reduce fuel dependency, DIU is actively identifying and implementing cutting-edge technologies aimed at optimizing tank, heating, and cooling systems across DoD facilities.
“Installation energy programs like the Heat Pumps prototypes project, support an incredibly important National mission to increase the efficiency of heating and cooling needs at our stateside and foreign bases, in the long run saving dollars that can be applied to personnel and other needs at our bases”, said Energy Portfolio Director at DIU, Dr. Andrew Higier. “This effort allows the DoD to benefit from commercial sector technology investments and advances in the heating and cooling sector.”
Key to this effort is the expert measurement and validation support, through the ESTCP program, which will collect pre-install and post-install operational data of the heat pump units to compare legacy unit performance in the buildings against that of the new prototype units. Data collection will last for one year, to ensure all season-data is used for efficiency and performance measurements.
ESTCP’s Tim Tetreault, Program Manager for Installation Energy and Water added that “demonstrating these units on DoD base buildings with the participation of the base facility managers, engineers and technicians is an important step for eventual acceptance of these new technologies. These new technologies have great potential to reduce base energy costs, improve building performance and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”
Efforts like these serve to increase installation resilience by introducing new technologies, critical to managing and optimizing future energy use on DoD bases. The three companies on the Heat Pump project are set to install and test systems starting in 2024 and into 2025.