Washington, D.C. (June 27, 2021) — The Edison Electric Institute (EEI) and the U.S. Department of the Army today announced they will collaborate to develop best practices for energy resilience planning. Their agreement is embodied in a newly signed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).
America’s investor-owned electric companies and the Army have a deep history of working together to meet energy resilience, efficiency, and affordability goals and to assess energy grid vulnerabilities that may impact the Army’s mission operations in the event of a physical or cyber attack. Per the MOU, EEI member companies and the Army will work to identify best practices for joint resilience planning and to optimize potential future investments for grid resilience and community resilience, as well as national security interests.
“EEI’s member electric companies have a longstanding relationship with our nation’s military and know how essential electricity and our industry are to national defense," said EEI President Tom Kuhn. “Through this MOU, we will establish best practices for energy resilience planning and will continue to make investments in critical energy infrastructure that will directly benefit our customers, including the Army. EEI looks forward to this formal partnership with the Army, and we welcome the opportunity to work with all branches of the U.S. military to provide them with the affordable, reliable, secure, and resilient clean energy needed to protect our country each day.”
“This historic agreement with EEI creates a new paradigm for collaboration between the Army and the investor-owned electric companies that serve us,” said Jack Surash, senior official performing the duties of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installations, Energy and Environment. “We have all witnessed recent events that highlight the risks for modern society when the grid goes down. The need to be resilient is now. We cannot allow these events to degrade our capabilities. We are advancing the development and use of renewable energy, as well as energy efficiency and consumption to enable Army operations. Our collaborations with EEI will improve the Army’s mission readiness and result in more resilient installations throughout the U.S.”
EEI and the Army are collaborating to identify domestic installations and electric companies to participate in this energy resilience planning best practices initiative. EEI member companies currently provide electricity to more than 300 military installations nationwide.
You can view the MOU here
