Schneider Electric ESPC to deliver $114 million energy savings at Navy bases

by Brianna Crandall — April 6, 2016—Schneider Electric, global specialist in energy management and automation, along with the U.S. Navy, announced yesterday a comprehensive infrastructure improvement project to transform the Naval Base Coronado (NBC) and Naval Auxiliary Landing Field San Clemente Island sites through a self-funding energy savings performance contract (ESPC).

Once complete, the improvements are expected to generate $114 million in guaranteed energy cost savings over the 19-year project term and will help the Navy meet many of its short- and long-term strategic goals, including the Presidential Performance Contract Challenge.

This extensive project encompasses upgrades to 90 buildings across two sites off the Southern California coast, including data center and electrical upgrades, as well as renewable energy and traditional energy conservation measures.

The project is expected to increase the reliability and capacity of mission-critical facilities, reduce overall operational and maintenance costs, and add renewable sources to the Navy’s energy portfolio, all without any additional appropriated funds. Construction is expected to be complete in 2018.

Schneider Electric points out that federal facilities face a unique challenges such as aging infrastructure, rising overhead costs, limited budgets and government mandates, making it essential for these facilities to run at maximum efficiency at all times.

A key component of the project includes upgrades to the Grace Hopper Data Center at NBC, one of the Navy’s largest and most mission-critical data centers. The Navy will consolidate several data centers and improve the security of information stored and disseminated at the facility through greater reliability.

The project is expected to reduce power usage effectiveness (PUE) from 2.53 to 1.2 and lessen consumption of server floor area from 60 percent to 20 percent, making room for new information technology (IT) equipment with built-in redundancy.

Specific infrastructure and energy efficiency improvements include the following:

  • 6,300 lighting fixtures/controls
  • 2,100 tons of cooling equipment
  • 2,000 MBH boiler plant
  • 476kW solar photovoltaic (PV) system
  • Two 5MW substations
  • 1.5 MW back-up diesel generator
  • Five performance optimized datacenters (PODs), including 72 IT enclosures, 30 in-row cooling units and 10 power distribution units (PDUs)
  • Building envelope upgrades including roof replacement
  • Control upgrades for all energy conservation measures and building systems, from lighting to solar PV, chillers, diesel generators and substations

These upgrades will not only help the Navy dramatically improve the reliability of mission-critical sites, but will also enable them to meet Congressionally mandated data center consolidation and renewable energy targets, says Schneider Electric.

The ESPC project delivery method helps publicly funded entities make capital improvements over longer payback periods and offers long-term benefits such as improved facility efficiency, occupant comfort, financial management and environmental protection.

In the past 23 years, Schneider Electric says it has successfully implemented more than 575 ESPC projects across the nation and helped clients around the world save more than $1.9 billion. Schneider Electric’s 160,000+ employees serve customers in over 100 countries.