Resilience exercise tests base readiness without power

  • Published
  • By Kendahl Johnson
  • 75th Air Base Wing Public Affairs

It was recently lights out for Hill AFB, as the base shut down power for an energy resilience readiness exercise (ERRE).

The base intentionally cut incoming commercial power for 10 hours to assess whether Hill could stay mission-ready during adverse conditions, and to verify backup generators and energy, water, and communication systems worked.

“Overall, I think the exercise went very well,” said Nick King, base energy manager. “We didn’t experience any major infrastructure challenges or problems, but we did learn there are some things that could improve in a major power outage.”

King said all the generators managed by the 75th Civil Engineer Group functioned as expected. The exercise also highlighted opportunities for improvement, such as identifying circuits in buildings that were assumed to be on generator backup but weren’t, and a few non-CEG maintained generators that needed attention.  He said the exercise allowed these items to be learned and solutions to be put in place before a real-world incident occurs.

“The exercise revealed some minor issues in vital infrastructure requirements that once solved will provide improved base resiliency,” Peter Feng, 75th CEG director.  “As far as the Team Hill execution with mission partners, it went really well.  Everyone was supportive and understood the relevance and importance of the exercise.”

Additional objectives for the ERRE were to identify backup power capability gaps between the infrastructure and mission requirements and determine improvement opportunities to ensure continual mission readiness.

The 2021 National Defense Authorization Act requires a minimum of five ERRE exercises per military department be conducted per year, and Hill was on the list for 2024.