Energy savings virtual workshop sees attendance nearly double

Huntsville Center Public Affairs
Published Sept. 9, 2021
Workers install portions of the 8.5 megawatt-per-hour battery system at Fort Carson, Colorado. Huntsville Center’s Energy Savings Performance Contracting program coordinated the project designed to reduce peak electricity use costs, especially during the summer cooling season.

Workers install portions of the 8.5 megawatt-per-hour battery system at Fort Carson, Colorado. Huntsville Center’s Energy Savings Performance Contracting program coordinated the project designed to reduce peak electricity use costs, especially during the summer cooling season.

HUNTSVILLE Ala. – More than 200 government and industry representatives attended the U.S. Army Engineering and Support Center, Huntsville’s virtual Energy Savings Performance Workshop Aug. 24-26.

Shah Alam, Huntsville Center ESPC program manager, said the workshop was a great success beyond his expectations even though the workshop was dependent upon the virtual communication platform.

“Everything went well and the quality of communication was very good,” Alam said. “Compared to prior years, our agenda included more topics and attendance was almost double.”

During the workshop, participants received updates on current federal energy, acquisition, and readiness polices, gained insight into the energy industry’s newest products and methods, and shared experiences and lessons learned.

Alam said the workshop assists in helping the Army achieve mission effectiveness and achieve mandates imposed by laws and Department of Defense regulations by integrating energy programs, initiatives and activities.

The U.S. Army Engineering and Support Center, Huntsville, is considered the Army’s expert in Energy Savings Performance Contracts and the program has saved military installations and other federal agencies millions of dollars over the last several years.

The workshop provided a forum for ESPC contractors and government personnel to discuss and exchange experiences, best practices, and ideas related to current and emerging issues associated with the ESPC Program.

Attendee Whitney Ray, Energy Manager at Fort Benning, Georgia, said she attended the workshop due to the relevance related to her position

“We currently have an ESPC on-going at (Fort) Benning and I wanted to hear about best practices that I can apply,” she said.

Ray provides oversight of all energy conservation and resiliency initiatives and management of facilities across the installation. She said the workshop allowed her to gain a deeper perspective on the ESPC process as a whole and gain insight and confidence in ongoing ESPC programs at Fort Benning. 

"Fort Benning currently has an on-going fence-to-fence ESPC with Honeywell that has two awarded phases including energy conservation measures such as upgrading base-wide utility metering, and lighting systems, solar inverter replacement, retro-commissioning and analytics.," she said. “The workshop gave me some opportunities to network and be able to ask follow up questions to subject matter experts that pertain to my installation that could keep us focused on the right direction."