The Department of Defense (DoD), on behalf of all Federal agencies, today announced its partnership with Dominion Energy Virginia (Dominion Energy) to work jointly toward achieving the carbon pollution-free electricity targets established in President Biden's Federal Sustainability Plan and Executive Order 14057 of December 8, 2021, reestablishing federal government as a sustainability leader.
President Biden's Federal Sustainability Plan directs the Government to lead by example to help tackle the climate crisis. It establishes an ambitious path to achieve 100% CFE for federal government operations by 2030, including 50% on a 24/7 hourly matched basis, along with 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. "As such, our relationships with our energy service providers are critically important. 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 and create good-paying jobs, a more stable and resilient grid, and cleaner air for local communities.
"To achieve the goal of resilient, reliable, clean electricity, DoD and Dominion Energy are jointly exploring several potential solutions, including on-site clean power generation, building level energy efficiency and a variety of other resilience and efficiency enhancing distributed energy resources. These efforts will deliver enhanced military readiness and community resilience," Owens said.
"For several years, Virginia has been at the forefront of our nation's clean energy transition," said Ed Baine, President of Dominion Energy Virginia. "We're excited to work with the Department of Defense to build on that progress and help achieve the federal government's clean energy goals." "This is a great example of how the public and private sectors can work together to promote a cleaner environment, create jobs and economic opportunity, and strengthen our nation's energy security."
DoD and Dominion Energy have identified three areas of opportunity for collaboration to help meet federal targets and each organization's decarbonization goals:
- Regulated tariffs: Dominion Energy offers multiple regulated tariff products and is exploring opportunities to expand options that can provide clean, resilient, and cost-effective sources of clean electricity
- Onsite generation development: Dominion Energy is exploring opportunities to build CFE generation assets on DoD land in Virginia. These projects can improve the resiliency of military installations and support the overall decarbonization of the region's electricity grid.
- Energy efficiency: Dominion Energy offers multiple energy efficiency programs that can support DoD and other federal agencies' overall energy and resilience goals, while reducing the overall load on the electric system. DoD is exploring the opportunity to enroll in these programs at installations in Dominion Energy's service territory.
"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 — and to do so in ways that are good for taxpayers and communities," said Andrew Mayock, federal chief sustainability officer at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. "Strengthening and deepening partnerships with utilities will spur new clean electricity production, creating good-paying jobs, increasing our resilience to climate change, and enhancing our national security."
DoD will continue to seek partnership opportunities that enable the agency and other Federal partners to achieve President Biden's CFE goals and build a robust, clean, and domestically based electricity supply chain by 2030.
Background:
With more than 300,000 buildings and 600,000 vehicles, the U.S. Government is the nation's largest energy consumer. In December 2021, President Biden issued the Federal Sustainability Plan, which directed the Government to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 by transitioning to zero-emission vehicles, energy efficient buildings, and carbon pollution-free electricity. In particular, the Plan directs the Government to transition to 100% CFE by 2030, at least half of which will be locally supplied clean energy to meet 24/7 hourly matched demand. Over the past three years, the U.S. Government has signed agreements to provide federal facilities in 16 states with 100% CFE by 2030, which will increase the U.S. Government's reliance on clean energy from 38% to 47% en route to 100% by 2030.