Lloyd J. Austin III Secretary of Defence | Official website
The Department of Defense (DoD), representing all Federal agencies, has announced a partnership with Dominion Energy Virginia to jointly strive towards the carbon pollution-free electricity targets set out in President Biden's Federal Sustainability Plan and Executive Order 14057 of December 8, 2021. The plan reestablishes the federal government as a sustainability leader.
President Biden's Federal Sustainability Plan instructs the Government to lead by example in addressing the climate crisis. It sets an ambitious course to achieve 100% Carbon-Free Electricity (CFE) for federal government operations by 2030, including 50% on a 24/7 hourly matched basis. The plan also includes aggressive goals for electric vehicles and net-zero emissions buildings.
"The Department of Defense is the largest energy consumer in the federal government," said Hon. Brendan Owens, assistant secretary of defense for energy, installations, and environment chief sustainability officer. "Working in partnership with Dominion Energy to ensure that our installations are supplied with resilient, reliable, and clean electricity enhances military readiness and strengthens the communities where our service members and civilian teammates live."
Federal demand for new sources of locally supplied carbon-free electricity will save taxpayer money while creating good-paying jobs, ensuring a more stable and resilient grid, and improving air quality for local communities.
"To achieve the goal of resilient, reliable, clean electricity, DoD and Dominion Energy are jointly exploring several potential solutions," Owens said. These include on-site clean power generation, building level energy efficiency, and various other resilience and efficiency enhancing distributed energy resources.
Ed Baine, President of Dominion Energy Virginia said: "For several years, Virginia has been at the forefront of our nation's clean energy transition." He added that this collaboration is an excellent example of how public and private sectors can work together to promote a cleaner environment while creating jobs and economic opportunity.
The DoD and Dominion Energy have identified three areas for collaboration: regulated tariffs; onsite generation development; and energy efficiency. The aim is to meet federal targets and each organization's decarbonization goals.
"President Biden charged the federal government to use our buying power, as the nation's largest energy consumer, to support the growth of America's clean energy industry," said Andrew Mayock, federal chief sustainability officer at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. He added that strengthening partnerships with utilities will spur new clean electricity production, create good-paying jobs, increase resilience to climate change, and enhance national security.
The DoD will continue seeking partnership opportunities that enable the agency and other Federal partners to achieve President Biden's CFE goals and build a robust, clean, domestically based electricity supply chain by 2030.
The U.S. Government is the nation's largest energy consumer with more than 300,000 buildings and 600,000 vehicles. In December 2021, President Biden issued the Federal Sustainability Plan directing the Government to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 through transitioning to zero-emission vehicles, energy-efficient buildings, and carbon pollution-free electricity.
