The Defense Department looks to establish new requirements for infrastructure contracts issued around the world in a push to mitigate vulnerability issues related to energy grid systems at military installations, Defense News reported Wednesday.
The report noted that challenges related to the grid infrastructure include external factors that impact the delivery of power and other resources at towns and cities where military installations are located including potential cyber and terrorist attacks.
Another challenge related to the power infrastructure involves the lack of redundancies at military installations which can potentially prevent the total shut down of operations at bases around the world.
“We’re here to find out what the most efficient and effective way we can get toward providing resilient power, [and] to provide redundant power to be able to allow us to continue to operate in case something happens to the grid,” said Lucian Niemeyer, assistant secretary of defense for energy, installations and environment.
“We’re exploring … what degree we can restructure [request for proposals] that would allow an entity to come in and provide a complete range of resources for us,” added Niemeyer.