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$114 Million in Guaranteed Energy Savings for the US Navy

Extensive project across two Southern California bases will transform data center capacity and reliability, add renewable energy sources.

Schneider Electric, the global specialist in energy management and automation, along with the U.S. Navy, today announced a comprehensive infrastructure improvement project to transform the Naval Base Coronado (NBC) and Naval Base San Clemente Island (NBSCI) sites through a self-funding energy savings performance contract (ESPC). Once complete, the improvements will 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 will 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.

“Federal facilities face a number of unique challenges, including aging infrastructure coupled with today’s climate of rising overhead costs, limited budgets and government mandates, making it essential for these facilities to run at maximum efficiency at all times,” said Jeff Sherman, Director, Federal Energy and Sustainability Services, Schneider Electric. “We are proud and excited to work with the U.S. Navy on one of the first comprehensive federal data center energy savings performance contracts (ESPC) and offer our combined expertise in data center and power management to help the Navy meet its energy efficiency goals and adhere to federal mandates without incrementally burdening U.S. taxpayers.”

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 will 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 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 envelop 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.

In the past 23 years, Schneider Electric has successfully implemented more than 575 ESPC projects across the nation and helped clients around the world save more than $1.9 billion. This project delivery method helps publicly funded entities make capital improvements over longer payback periods and offers many long-term benefits such as improved facility efficiency, occupant comfort, financial management and environmental protection.