Small Businesses Face Immense Opportunity Nationwide

The US Army’s recently released – and long-awaited – $7B Request for Proposals (RFP) for renewable alternative energy and power production for DoD installations is a major step forward for our military’s and our country’s endeavor to reduce fuel demand and increase national security. It represents an immense opportunity for America’s small businesses, and those considering the government game should check out our guide (it’s free) that we put together specifically for small business energy companies. The guide explains the RFP process, and we guarantee it’s the most succinct and easy to understand guide you’ll find anywhere – and we know this for sure because we researched our tails off writing it. Click the green button and it’s yours.

Army Energy

Below is an article from the Honorable Katherine Hammack, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installations, Energy and Environment (ASA IE&E). Like the rest of her boys and girls in Green, Ms. Hammack understands the importance of this for the Army and for the country, and we love her support and enthusiasm for the job she’s just done!

Ms. Katherine Hammack, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installations, Energy and Environment (ASA IE&E)

“This week, I joined Ms. Heather Zichal, Deputy Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change, LTG Tom Bostick, Army’s Chief of Engineering and Commanding General of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), MG Ken Cox, Deputy Commanding General of USACE and Stuart Hazlett, Director of Contracting, USACE in announcing the release of a $7 billion Multiple Award Task Order Contract (MATOC) Request for Proposal (RFP).

This is truly a week for the U.S. Army to take pride in the strides it’s making toward managing its energy resources and developing new, clean, renewable energy.  The release of this MATOC RFP by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers demonstrates the Army’s commitment toward installation energy security, mission readiness and resilience. This MATOC’s 7 billion dollar in contract capacity will procure reliable, locally generated, renewable and alternative energy through Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) for up to 30 years.
Ms. Katherine Hammack, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installations, Energy and Environment (ASA IE&E)

This past April, the White House announced that the Department of Defense (DoD) was making one of the largest commitments to clean energy in history, by setting a goal to deploy three gigawatts of renewable energy – including solar, wind, biomass, or geothermal – on Army, Navy and Air Force installations by 2025 – that is enough energy to power 750,000 homes.  The Army’s goal is one gigawatt of that total.  These goals support the broader DoD goal to enhance installation energy security and reduce installation energy costs.

You might be asking why do we have these goals?  By diversifying our installation’s energy sources to include sustainable, renewable energy, we improve our ability to fulfill our missions during energy interruptions and to better manage energy price volatility.  Energy budget assurance is energy security, just as is providing for the continuity of operations.  Army energy security and sustainability are operationally necessary, financially prudent and mission critical.

The $7 billion MATOC RFP will help us fill those goals.  This MATOC is a key contracting vehicle that will be used to procure reliable renewable and alternative energy through establishing a pool of qualified firms and contractors with solar, wind, biomass, and geothermal technologies to compete for individual PPAs.

Our approach allows the Army to purchase the energy that is produced; no generation assets will be required.  Selected contractors of the MATOC will finance, design, build, operate, own and maintain the energy plants. The government will then contract to purchase the power for up to 30 years in accordance with the terms and conditions stipulated in project specific agreements. Then will result from task orders competitively awarded under the MATOC.  Project locations may be on any federal property located within the U.S. including Alaska, Hawaii, territories, provinces or other property under the control of the U.S. government.

By awarding the contract, the Army increases its agility through streamlining acquisition processes to develop large-scale renewable energy projects using private sector financing.  This approach will help speed overall project development timelines to ensure the best value to the Army and private sector.

Last year, Secretary McHugh established the U.S. Army Energy Initiatives Task Force’s (EITF), which opened its doors on September 15, 2011.  The EITF now serves as the Army’s central management office for partnering with Army installations to implement cost-effective, large-scale, renewable energy projects, leveraging third party financing.  The MATOC is one of the contract vehicles that will help support the EITF in its efforts to meet its mission.

Back then the Secretary announced that “you’ll see the Army will leverage opportunities through existing contract authorities, such as PPAs, enhanced-use lease agreements, energy savings performance and utilities service contracts.”

The MATOC RFP is a good example of this commitment and the Army’s budgeting stewardship.  We are leveraging an existing authority, 10 USC 2922a, which gives the DoD the unique authority to contract for renewable energy Power Purchase Agreements for up to 30 years.

We believe this MATOC RFP – Renewable and Alternative Energy Power Production for DoD Installations – will be a major contributor to achieving the Army’s renewable energy goals and ensuring the Army of tomorrow has the same access to energy, water, land and natural resources as the Army of today.

A pre-proposal conference for interested bidders will take place at the end of August.  The location and registration will be announced at a later date.

I encourage you to visit the EITF’s Website and the Federal Business Opportunities Website for more information about the MATOC RFP.

I am proud of the work we’ve done.”

Source: http://armylive.dodlive.mil/index.php/2012/08/renewable-alternative-energy-and-power-production-for-dod-installations/

Great write-up from Blake Hall of troopswap.com on the health of the US Veteran entrepreneurial community. I speak often with soon-to-be-separating active duty service members, and more and more in our area (New England) do seem to be choosing the self-employed route. I love to see the hustle!

Here is Blake’s full write-up, originally published over at techli.com:

A 2011 SBA study found that “veterans are at least 45 percent more likely than those with no active-duty military experience to be self-employed.” Veterans are also flourishing economically relative to their non-veteran peers. According to a July 2012 report released by the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, veterans enjoy a substantially lower rate of unemployment at 6.9% versus the national unemployment rate at 8.3%. The Census Bureau released an infographic in July based on a study that found veterans earn almost $10,000 more per year in median income relative to non-veterans. Additionally, veterans own an eye popping 9% of all American businesses and employ 5.8M Americans despite composing only 7.2% of the entire American workforce.

As a veteran entrepreneur myself, I believe that the military is a powerful enabler for entrepreneurship due to unique internal and external forces that shape and aid the veteran entrepreneur.

Trust: Veteran entrepreneurs begin relationships with a great deal of trust. Most investors want to see entrepreneurs who put their own skin in the game, so military service is a powerful signaling mechanism because investors know that the entrepreneur they are dealing with risked their lives while they served in order to successfully complete their mission. That observation is supported by this June 2011 Gallup poll which ranked the military as the most trusted institution in America: http://www.gallup.com/poll/148163/americans-confident-military-least-congress.aspx For many early stage founders, a relationship based on trust is the single most important determining factor for raising capital when investors are on the fence. In that regard, veterans start with a leg up.

Risk Preference & Self-Identity: If you are willing to repeatedly jump out of a perfectly good airplane, then you probably have the risk tolerance necessary to be an entrepreneur. If you’ve been deployed to a combat zone, then you don’t feel stress in the same way that you did before that experience. I can comment on both events and their aftermath with authority from my own military experience. The military takes a preference for risk and shoots steroids into it in order to inure soldiers to extreme stimulus. Through a powerful indoctrination process (not necessarily a bad thing) the military molds leaders who gradually learn to tie their self-identity to the well-being of the group rather than to their own individual comfort level. That’s why good officers eat last and wake up in the middle of the night to check on their younger soldiers who are standing watch. In the private sector, veterans form a unique population of business leaders who have internalized values that allow them to effectively lead groups of men and women through ambiguous, high-risk situations.

For many veterans, entrepreneurship provides a vital sense of purpose and meaning. There is no question about your role in the world when you serve in the United States military. You matter. Similarly, entrepreneurship allows veterans to change the world for the better. It allows veterans like me to feel the same sense of purpose I felt when I served.

The following was originally published July 19th by Kirsten Korosec over at www.smartplanet.com.

Solar Panels Power the Base Housing Units at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, AZ.

SolarCity is pushing ahead with the next phase of SolarStrong, an ambitious $1 billion military housing project that aims to install solar panels on up to 120,000 homes.

SolarCity and real estate developer and property management firm Lend Lease are collaborating to install solar panels on more than 850 military residences at Air Force communities in California and Colorado. The three Air Force residential areas —  the Los Angeles Air Force Base as well as Peterson AFB and Schriever AFB in Colorado Springs — are managed by Lend Lease.

SolarCity, the San Mateo, Calif.-based rooftop installer that announced in May plans to go public, will engineer, install and maintain the solar systems at all three AFB locations. About 18,000 solar panels, with the capacity to generate more than 6.4 million kilowatt hours per year of renewable energy, will be installed in this phase. The panels are expected to offset between 30 percent to 60 percent of the electricity typically used in each community, SolarCity said.

SolarStrong kicked off at Hickam Communities at Joint Base Pearl Habor-Hickam in Hawaii, where 2,000 military homes were outfitted with solar panels. Lend Lease and SolarCity also have completed solar installations separate from the SolarStrong program at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Ariz.

Less than a year ago, the SolarStrong program was at risk of falling apart. The five-year $1 billion program was initially met with enthusiasm. But not long after its September 2011 unveiling, the program was put in jeopardy when the Energy Department said it was unable to finalize their approval of a $275 million loan guarantee by the Sept. 30 deadline– a critical component for SolarCity to secure financing.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch and SolarCity agreed to financing terms in November despite the lack of a DOE loan guarantee. In March, U.S. Bancorp and SolarCity announced the creation of a renewable energy tax equity fund to help initiate the first phase of the SolarStrong project.

Photo: Solar installation at Davis Monthan Air Force Base from SolarCity

US Military Open for Private Sector Renewable Energy Ideas

The following is reblogged from Margaret Ryan’s June 15th article over at Energy.Aol.com

US President Barack Obama (L) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (R) tour Photovoltaic Array at Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas, Nevada, May 27, 2009 with Base Commander Colonel Howard Belote. AFP PHOTO/Jim WATSON

The US military services want to derive 3 gigawatts of electric capacity from renewables by 2025, but they don’t have the budget to pay to build it.

So they’re ready to deal.

They want entrepreneurs to build facilities and sell them power on long-term agreements, Army and Air Force officials told a packed audience of industry contractors June 12 at the Joint US Army/US Air Force Renewable Energy Industry Day in Arlington, VA.

More than 800 people attended the day-long conference, with many questioners seeking specifics on how they could make their technologies or services fit the military’s needs.

Decisions Being Driven by Energy Security and Economics

The military is faced with increasing conventional fuel costs, like everyone else, but also a looming 10% budget sequester required by deficit legislation. That’s given added urgency to lowering the services’ energy bills while slashing money for facility capital investment.

The Army held its energy usage flat in fiscal 2011 but its energy bill increased by $1 billion, said Assistant Secretary of the Army Katherine Hammack. “We must effectively work with the private sector,” she said, to sustain the Army’s mission.

Ditto for the Air Force, said Assistant Secretary of the Air Force Terry Yonkers. Private financing arrangements will be critical to the military’s transition to renewables, he said.

While some have questioned whether the interest in renewables comes from environmental concerns, he and Hammack both said energy security and economics are the military’s long-run drivers.

The Army Energy Initiatives Task Force (EITF) is coordinating smaller-scale renewable projects where the Army brings the land, usually offering a long-term lease or easement, and developers bring technology and financing. Typically, officials said, the Army will sign a long-term power purchase agreement for most or all of the power, working as needed with local utilities, so projects can get third-party financing….  [Read More]

The government on Wednesday unveiled FedRAMP, its program to standardize security certification processes for acquiring cloud services. The program makes the security certification uniform across federal agencies, and it is designed to provide a “do once, use many times” certification model. This change will make it easier for small businesses to sell cloud services to the government, as it will eliminate the cost and resources associated with reapplying for security certification for each new federal organization or customer. As the government moves toward its cloud-first policy, FedRAMP should provide a much easier road ahead for the small business cloud service providers looking to sell to the government.

From Timothy Smith’s Washington Post article this week:
“The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, known as FedRAMP, will standardize the basic security requirements that cloud computing providers … will have to meet before receiving government contracts. The new guidelines will require contractors to hire third-party assessment organizations that will verify whether they meet the basic security requirements.

This program, developed by GSA, the departments of Defense and Homeland Security, and the Office of Management and Budget, will set one government-wide cloud security program, which means a vendor … would not have to repeat the security approval process every time it wants to bid on a cloud-computing contract.” Read the full article here.

The Department of Defense has made one of the largest commitments to clean energy in history, developing a goal to deploy three gigawatts of renewable energy – including solar, wind, biomass, and geothermal – on Army, Navy, and Air Force installations by 2025.

This effort furthers the commitment President Obama made during the State of the Union to develop 1 gigawatt of renewable energy on Navy installations by 2020.  The Air Force goal of obtaining 1 gigawatt by 2016 and the Army goal of obtaining 1 gigawatt by 2025 support the broader DoD goal to meet 25 percent of its energy needs with renewable energy by 2025.

The opportunity for clean energy providers in the defense space is real, and the military services are currently soliciting vendors to begin work on these multibillion dollar energy programs. What will be missing from the equation, however, is a sufficient number of clean energy providers to meet the military’s ambitious demand.

Maine regulators announced today that three utilities are on the path to being the first to provide commercial tidal power to the US Grid.  According to the AP article, “the first turbine unit will be capable of powering 20 to 25 homes; the pilot program calls for additional units to power up more than 1,000 homes by 2016.”

The US Navy is also evaluating the current maturity of wave energy conversion devices for possible installation at Navy and Marine Corps installations. The Navy would like to install them at coastal locations where technical and economic feasibility can be demonstrated. They have released a Request for Information, which tells more about the project.

In most basic terms, the point of an RFI is to educate the military. Here, the Navy wants to understand the technology a little better, and wants to understand which vendors might be able to provide them with the wave energy conversion technologies they need. So with this RFI, the Navy wants to hear from WEC providers. Here is the link to that RFI.

As part of the normal RFI process, vendors are able to ask the Navy questions, and the Navy answers them publicly. This serves two purposes: one, it helps the interested companies better understand the project, and two, it often helps the Navy scope their solicitation better and more accurately. So if you read through the RFI, you might have some questions about the work and the project. Here are answers to the questions some vendors have already asked.

As their Request for Information (RFI) articulates, the Navy is trying to “assess interest in testing wave energy conversion (WEC) devices at the Navy’s Wave Energy Test Site (WETS), located at Marine Corps Base Hawaii (MCBH), Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii.  The ultimate objective of this effort is to support development and utilization of wave energy technology as a means to reduce dependence on fossil fuel and associated emissions, while reducing risk of environmental impact associated with fossil fuel in the energy production process.”

If you are interested in this opportunity, you can add yourself to the interested vendors list, but you will need to be registered on fbo.gov in order to do so. Here is a quick and easy tutorial on how to register on fbo.gov.

If you want to learn more about opportunities like these, you can feel free to email us directly any time, or you can also check out one of our BootCampus courses.

Important takeway for clean energy providers: the military wants clean energy technology because it improves operational effectiveness, reduces risk, and saves lives. These are “operational” considerations, and they drive the most reliable and longest-term opportunities in selling to the government and military.