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FORT CAVAZOS, Texas (KWTX) - Fort Cavazos Directorate of Public Works held a ribbon cutting Friday, Feb. 23 for their newly created microgrid for Robert Gray Army Airfield and West Fort Cavazos.

US Army Garrison Fort Cavazos partnered with the City of Temple and Dominion Energy to receive the $5 million State of Texas Economic Adjustment Assistance Grant (DEAAG) for an Intelligent Energy Grid Sustainability and Restoration Microgrid Tool.

The microgrid isolates power from the larger grid by islanding and serving its own load, if the main electrical grid was to down. In the event of an electrical grid shut down, Fort Cavazos’s new microgrid will be able to provide power for up to 14 days.

Bobby Lynn, chief of the Energy Management Branch, explained that the microgrid is a win-win for the environment and the Fort Cavazos community.

“If a large power outage hit the airport, it could shut down operations and have significant impacts to mission readiness,” Lynn said. “But by creating a microgrid, we can enhance local resiliency and continue to support airport operations.”

Along with being able to provide power to the airfield, it would be able to provide power to 43 other buildings on West Fort Cavazos including barracks, dining facilities and more for the soldiers and their families on the base.

The microgrid is designed and installed with cybersecurity features that includes renewable energy, battery storage and backup generators.

Here are the Microgrid specifications according to Fort Cavazos:

Microgrid provides a minimum of 14 days of operational capability for 43 Fort Cavazos facilities
Electric & Natural Gas (NG) Grid Hardening of over 30,000′ of energy infrastructure
Over 1,000′ of fiber optic communications installed for grid intelligence
3,000 Kilovolt Amps (KA) of transformer capability installed
1.95 Megawatts (MW) of NG generation
An Electric Vehicle (EV) HUB within microgrid with eight (8) level two
Two EV charging ports to provide transportation security for EV fleet in the event of grid failure
650 Kilowatts (KW) of future Vehicle to Grid (V2G) of EV battery storage capability
30 KW of solar capacity
24/7 Grid Commodity and Weather Monitoring
Ability to provide over $125,000 of energy savings per day during any Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) peak demand periods