The U.S. Department of Energy recently awarded a $500,000 grant to Vandenberg Air Force Base in California to aid the installation’s energy resilience and efficiency programs, Santa Maria Times reports.
The grant, which was applied for in July 2020, will supplement the base’s Solar 1 photovoltaic array, a 28 megawatt solar generator plant completed in 2018.
“This grant was a joint effort by 30th CES and the 30th Comptroller Squadron,” said Bill Toman, 30th CES energy manager. “We have been developing strategies to more completely utilize the full output of the existing solar PV plant, and to upgrade Vandenberg’s infrastructure in support of energy resiliency objectives.
“We identified the $500K U.S. DOE AFFECT Grant as an excellent opportunity to secure additional funding that would enable the 30th CES to expand upon planned improvements for the base.”
Toman says the installation’s solar array is capable in producing more energy during the daylight hours than Vandenberg AFB can use. To this end, the DOE grant will used to study engineer solutions to maximize the storage of solar energy in utility scale batteries.
“When completed, the batteries will result in a lower cost of electricity to the base and will reduce Vandenberg’s carbon footprint by more fully utilizing the solar energy available from the solar array,” said Toman.
Photo by Brian Garmon