Fortifying Energy Resiliency and Preparedness

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By David Irwin, P.E., M.SAME, and James Kruszynski

At Joint Forces Training Base, Los Alamitos, the U.S. Army is achieving energy reliability through a partnership with the private sector on a commercial power plant that is capable of rapidly providing standalone, off-grid power to the base and which it has already proven in a real-world outage event.

While today’s rapidly evolving energy landscape creates opportunities for modernizing energy systems, it also creates new threats and vulnerabilities that could impact mission readiness of the U.S. Army. The homeland is no longer a sanctuary. The nation’s energy infrastructure increasingly faces significant physical, cyber, and other national security threats. To combat these threats and ensure that the Army can deploy, fight, and win the nation’s wars, it is critical that every installation has the capability to operate independently from the commercial grid in an emergency.

Both federal law and Army policy stress the immediate need for ready, resilient power and modernized energy infrastructure to mitigate energy supply risks. The Army is actively pursuing innovative technical approaches to secure reliable and uninterrupted power at its installations.

The Army Office of Energy Initiatives (OEI) is the service’s centralized program office for innovative approaches to securing energy resilience and reliability. OEI is constantly adapting business practices to collaborate with industry in developing large-scale, privately funded energy projects on installations that support Army operations at home and abroad. Additionally, these investments provide support to local defense communities during normal operating conditions.

A prime example of OEI’s approach is the recent collaboration with the California National Guard, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and Ameresco for an energy project at Joint Forces Training Base, Los Alamitos, Calif. A new commercial power plant is designed to serve the grid in normal conditions, but can rapidly provide standalone, off-grid power to the base during grid outages. The project combines 31-MW of solar, 20-MW/40-MWh of battery storage, and diesel back-up generation to ensure that electricity is available to support operations during an outage. The system began providing power to the regional grid in November 2023 and has already demonstrated its ability to insulate the installation during unexpected grid outages.

Hosting more than 40 major military, government, and civilian tenant organizations, Joint Forces Training Base, Los Alamitos serves as the California National Guard’s premier military training facility and emergency response hub in Southern California.

This strategic, multi-technology energy project enhances resilience and reliability for mission readiness, strengthens energy supply to the broader area community, and modernizes critical infrastructure the Army depends on.

Strategic Partnership

OEI is responsible for leveraging underutilized real estate on Army installations by partnering with industry to locate energy production on-site—enhancing mission readiness with energy resilience and reliability.

At Los Alamitos, National Guard personnel identified about 100-acres of underutilized land and a former landfill that were an ideal location for on-site energy generation. With support from OEI, the base sought an industry partner to repurpose the sites for the project. After a competitive solicitation, the Army awarded Bright Canyon Energy (acquired by Ameresco in 2023) with a 30-year lease for the site.

The lease was executed in February 2022, and groundbreaking took place a few weeks later. The project entered commercial operations in November 2023. Power is sold on an hourly basis to San Diego Gas and Electric under a 10-year power purchase agreement, which was approved by the California Public Utilities Commission due to its benefits for state ratepayers. As consideration for the lease, the project provides power to Los Alamitos during power outages, assuring uninterrupted access to energy for mission readiness.

The success of this venture demonstrates the value of collaboration between the Army and the energy industry to meet modern societal needs. It also shows how private capital can be used to provide mission-critical energy resilience capabilities and benefit retail electricity customers at no cost to the taxpayer.

Innovative, Reliable Solution

The Los Alamitos facility consists of a 31-MW single-axis tracking solar system, 20-MW/40-MWh Li-ion battery storage, and 3-MW of diesel generation located on two sites. All the diesel generation, and half the solar and battery capacity, are integrated with the installation’s distribution system through a microgrid controller. In the event of a commercial grid interruption, the microgrid control system automatically detects and executes a rapid transition to standalone operations. This capability assures uninterrupted access to electricity.

Though the solar and battery assets can support the base through prolonged outages, the diesel component ensures the mission can continue in any condition. On the rare occasions that the solar or battery energy storage system cannot provide power, the generators can support operational requirements alone.

The Los Alamitos microgrid was recently put to the test by a real-world outage. In January 2025, utility power was lost and the microgrid autonomously engaged to return power. Once utility power was restored and stabilized, the microgrid seamlessly transitioned the installation back to utility power. While this event was short-lived, it demonstrates the resiliency and readiness for any future disruptions to power. In contested environments, even brief durations without access to power are unacceptable.

Mutually Beneficial

The Los Alamitos power production and microgrid project demonstrates that innovative solutions, delivered through industry and government collaboration, not only mitigate the threat of energy supply disruptions but also present opportunities for ratepayers and area communities to benefit from investments. By leveraging its real estate authorities, the Army authorized a mission assurance asset energy system that is privately owned, operated, and maintained. It required no appropriated funding for its construction, and the Army is not responsible for ongoing operations or maintenance to ensure a ready and reliable energy supply. Los Alamitos and its tenant organizations can focus on the critical services they provide, including defense support of civil authorities and emergency response missions.

Partnerships with the private sector will continue to be a core element of the Army’s installation energy resilience and reliability strategy. OEI is actively pursuing other collaboration opportunities now that will encourage industry innovation, leverage economies of scale, and enable access to external capital in order to optimize limited resources and fill capability gaps.

David Irwin, P.E., M.SAME, is Program Director for Project Development, and James Kruszynski is Project Director, Army Office of Energy Initiatives. They can be reached at david.j.irwin22.civ@army.mil; and james.p.kruszynski.civ@army.mil.

Published in the July-August 2025 issue of The Military Engineer