1. W
hen an ice storm crippled
central Kentucky in
January 2009, knocking
out power to the military
base at Fort Knox for five days, U.S.
Army officials vowed it would never
happen again.
But even before the storm, efforts
were underway to develop a separate
source of on-site power stemming from
the 2007 Energy Independence and
Security Act, which required a higher
level of energy security at military
installations.
This year, Fort Knox completed a $60
million energy project that provides the
sprawling base with 44 MW of peak-
load power. Four of six gas-fired Cat®
G3520C generator sets supply power to
the base 24/7 through a combined heat
and power (CHP) system.
The installation also includes 10
Cat 3516 diesel gensets that are used
primarily for backup power. The gas
and diesel units are housed in six
separate power stations that comprise
the micro grid at the 109,000-acre
base, which is located 35 minutes south
of Louisville. The power stations all
utilize Cat ISO Switchgear, which
integrates monitoring and control of the
Cat generator sets in a single-source
package.
Beyond providing energy security,
the new power system is reducing the
base’s energy costs by an estimated $8
million per year—with $4.5 million
of the savings coming from the CHP
system. The other $3.5 million is derived
from peak shaving during periods of
high demand, such as the summer,
when highs can exceed 90 degrees for
weeks at a time. Total project payback
is expected in approximately seven and
one-half years.
A world leader
With the Energy Act of 1995, all
government agencies were tasked to
reduce energy consumption at a rate of
1.5 percent, year over year.
“So that’s goal number one, and Fort
Knox is achieving that, as one of the best,
if not the best military base in the world
in terms of overall energy reduction,”
says Tom Abele, a vice president for
project developer Harshaw Trane.
Adding to the overall sustainability
effort, Fort Knox expects to complete
a project converting methane gas from
shale gas reserves on undeveloped
land that is part of the base into enough
electricity for the entire post, deputy
garrison commander Emmett Holley said
in a published report.
Harshaw Trane was hired to provide
energy security to the base, and the
challenge was to do it in a way that paid
for itself, Abele says.
“We ran multiple scenarios and
considered various solutions, including
alternative fuels, biodiesel, waste-to-
energy, coal and big turbines,” he says.
“Nothing made as much sense as CHP.”
On average, Fort Knox purchases about
22 MW from the local utility, Louisville
Gas & Electric, and the rest will come
from its own power plant.
“In terms of kilowatt hours, only about
25 percent of the power for the base will
be produced here,” Abele says. “The
rest of the power will still be purchased,
but it will be without those high demand
penalties, and that’s where you start to
achieve load unity or power unity.”
CHP systems are efficient, as they
capture heat that is generated when
producing power. Buildings use the
captured heat in their facilities in various
forms, such as steam heat, hot water, and
in chillers to produce air conditioning. Continued on page 14
CHP ENERGY PLANT SAVES
MILLIONS AT ARMY BASE
GOLDGOLDGOLDGOOD as
This can dramatically lower annual
heating bills.
At Fort Knox, Ireland Army
Community Hospital is a prime customer
for CHP, as waste heat from the
generators is used to heat the building,
sterilize equipment, and cook the food
for patients and staff. The gas generators
also provide about 80 percent of the
12 RUNREADY RUNREADY 13SPRING 2015ISSUE NUMBER 21
CUSTOMER PROFILE
Nolin RECC
(Utility energy service contractor)
Harshaw Trane
(Project developer)
Location: Fort Knox, Ky.
(U.S. Army post)
Weekday Population: 25,000,
including military personnel,
soldiers and civilians
Application: Combined Heat and
Power, Peak Shaving
Cat®
Equipment: 3516C generator
sets (10); G3520C generator sets (6);
15 kV utility and generator paralleling
switchgear (6)
Clockwise: A G3520C generator set; an operator
from Nolin RECC in the energy plant control center;
Dan Clapp, a Whayne Power Systems product
representative, monitors Cat Switchgear.
Clockwise: A G3520C generator set; an operator
from Nolin RECC in the energy plant control center;
Dan Clapp, a Whayne Power Systems product
representative, monitors Cat Switchgear.
CUSTOMERFEATURECUSTOMERFEATURE

2. FORT KNOX
✮
For 60 years, Fort Knox was the home of the
U.S. Army Armor Center and the U.S Army
Armor School, and was used by both the
Army and the Marine Corps to train crews
on the M1 Abrams main battle tank.
While tank training no longer takes place
at the 109,000-acre military base just south
of Louisville, the federal base realign-
ment program approved in 2005 brought a
largely white-collar command to Fort Knox.
The military post has become a center for
human resources with the relocation of the
Army Human Resource Command Center
to Fort Knox in 2009 from the Washington
D.C./Virginia area.
In May 2010, the Army Human Resource
Center opened following the largest
construction project in the history of
Fort Knox. The $185 million, three-story,
880,000-square-foot complex of six inter-
connected buildings is the largest office
building in the state, employing nearly 4,300
soldiers and civilians.
While approximately two-thirds of the
buildings that once stood on the post have
been torn down, Fort Knox is one of only
three Army posts that still has a high school
onsite.
In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt
outlawed the private ownership of gold
coins, gold bullion and gold certificates by
American citizens, forcing them to sell these
holdings to the Federal Reserve. As a result,
the value of the gold held by the Federal
Reserve increased from $4 billion to $12
billion between 1933 and 1937.
This left the federal government with a
large gold reserve and no place to store
it. In 1936, the U.S. Treasury Department
began construction of the United States
Bullion Depository at Fort Knox on land
transferred from the military. The gold vault
was completed for $560,000 ($9.5 million in
today’s dollars).
While Fort Knox’s gold holdings peaked
during World War II at 20,205 metric tons
(649.6 million troy ounces), today, holdings
are 258.6 million troy ounces, according
to a recent report from the U.S Treasury
Department. At the January 16, 2015 rate of
$1,280.30 an ounce, it’s worth about $380
billion.
Below the fortress-like structure lies the
gold vault lined with granite walls and
protected by a blast-proof door weighing 22
tons. Members
of the depository
staff must dial
separate combina-
tions known only to
them. Beyond the main vault door, smaller
compartments provide further protection.
For security reasons, no visitors are
allowed inside the depository grounds.
The depository is protected by layers of
physical security, alarms, video cameras,
microphones, mine fields, barbed razor
wire, electric fences, heavily armed guards,
and also the Army units based at Fort Knox.
The bullion depository has become a symbol
of an impregnable vault, leading to phrases
such as “safer than Fort Knox.” Business
names in the surrounding area incorporate
references to the famed bullion depository.
steam and chilled water that the hospital
requires. Captured heat from the gensets
is converted into chilled water to serve
Fort Knox’s data center, which requires
constant cooling.
“So our savings come from demand
reduction, or kilowatt consumption
avoidance,” Abele says. “In this case,
we’re air conditioning and heating the
hospital, which is essentially a 400-bed
facility. We are providing all the air
conditioning for an extremely large data
center at the Human Resources Center,
and we’re also providing heating and air
conditioning for a shopping center, a PX
and a furniture store.
“So when you add up all of the energy
avoidance from the thermal side of the
combined heat power, and the avoided
energy to provide the heating and air
conditioning for those facilities—add that
to the electricity savings of the CHP, and
it totals about $4.5 million,” he says.
An economic dispatch model
developed by Fellon-McCord dictates
when it makes the most sense for Fort
Knox to purchase power, and when it
makes sense to generate its own power.
The model has been refined to the point
where it indicates every 15 minutes how
much power the base should purchase
and/or produce on its own.
Partnering with Whayne
Cat dealer Whayne Power Systems
provided 16 of the 21 total generator
sets for the project, as well as serving
as a consulting partner when the system
was engineered. To find the right mix
of generators, consideration was given
as to how each building on the campus
is used, which helped determine where
each genset should be placed, said Steve
Killian, a sales engineer for Whayne
Power Systems.
“Whayne Power Systems’ involvement
was critical to successful implementation,
and they’ve been here since startup,”
says Greg Lee, an operations engineer for
Nolin RECC, the onsite owner-operator
of the power plant.
“This has been a lengthy process and
certainly the biggest that we have ever
taken on as an organization,” Lee says.
“Along the way, no matter how well
you’ve prepared, there have been certain
things that just couldn’t be forecast.
Fortunately for us, we’ve had the Whayne
technicians and engineers who can resolve
any issues we encounter, or put us in touch
with the right people at Caterpillar.”
The selection of the Cat generator sets
at Fort Knox was based on the fact that
they were the right fit for the project,
their reputation for durability, and also
the close proximity to the resources of
Whayne in Louisville.
“The efficiencies of these generators,
as well as the sizes that we needed, really
matched up with how we wanted to spread
them out across our distribution system,”
Lee says. “We never wanted to be in a
situation where we had one or two or three
really large, centralized generators. We
wanted the redundancy of several smaller
generators. That way we aren’t putting all
of our eggs in one basket.”
The switchgear was installed and
programmed by Caterpillar ISO, based
in Alpharetta, Ga. The Cat switchgear is
essential for Nolin to coordinate the use
of all the generators across the base.
“They were able to help us find a way
to interface each individual switchgear
PLC with our economic dispatch PLC,
which provides the automated control
from one central location,” Lee says.
Caterpillar and Whayne Power Systems
have been involved in several critical
aspects of the project, which is expected to
be fully complete in March 2015, Lee says.
“Caterpillar and Whayne have been
involved almost from the beginning, and
they’ve been able to help us achieve the
results that we want.”
FORT KNOXHuman resources center, gold vault are main functions at Army base
The U.S. Gold Bullion Depository at Fort Knox
“We ran multiple scenarios and considered various solutions,
including alternative fuels, biodiesel, waste-to-energy, coal
and big turbines. Nothing made as much sense as CHP.”
TOM ABELE
Vice President
Harshaw Trane
“
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14 RUNREADY SPRING 2015ISSUE NUMBER 21