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Commander, Fleet Activities Sasebo First Navy Overseas Installation to Conduct Black Start Exercise
Story by: Commander, Fleet Activities Sasebo Public Affairs
SASEBO, Japan -- Commander, Fleet Activities Sasebo (CFAS) became the first U.S. Navy installation in Japan to conduct the congressionally mandated Black Start Exercise, 20 Nov. 2024.
Black start exercises are real-world installation energy exercises in which the delivery of energy provided from off an installation is terminated before backup generation assets on the installation are turned on. These exercises determine the ability of the backup systems to start independently, transfer the load, and carry the load until energy from off the installation is restored. The exercise has an emphasis on energy resilience, the ability to avoid, prepare for, minimize, adapt to, and recover from anticipated and unanticipated energy disruptions in order to ensure energy availability and reliability sufficient to provide for mission assurance and readiness.
At approximately 9:30 a.m. CFAS Public Works Department personnel cut power to the main base, No. 2 Dry Dock facility, Dragon Vale and Fiddler’s Green housing areas, and Nimitz Park. Following the loss of power, mission essential facilities, such as the CFAS and Forward Deployed Naval Forces’ headquarters and buildings containing mission critical functions and emergency services, shifted to backup generators and resumed operations as normal.
During the 12-hour exercise, the installation’s Public Works Department began using emergency power systems to restore power to portions of the base and eventually reconnecting CFAS with the Sasebo City power grid. CFAS personnel and moored ships checked systems and generators to ensure that they were functioning properly to complete mission critical tasking in case of an extended energy disruption and to identify unknown risks and interdependencies within the systems.
“Through this black start exercise we learned a lot about our mission functions and backup power solutions,” said Capt. Michael Fontaine, Commander, Fleet Activities Sasebo. “Being the first Navy installation in Japan to conduct the exercise brought its own challenges but we were able to ensure the drill did not affect the Sasebo power grid by working closely with the Kyushu Electric Power Company. The partnerships we strengthened during this exercise will be beneficial in the future as we continue to work closely with the local Japanese community and Japan Self-Defense Forces to achieve our mutual goals.
Conducting exercises like Black Start is used to identify vulnerabilities and potential risks to the installation during real-world scenarios as well as to help inform potential risks to the commercial energy grid if a “black start” event ever occurs. The office of the secretary of defense says the department of defense has the unique ability to create isolated areas to conduct black start exercises; an ability that large commercial grids do not have due to safety requirements for restarting the power grid from a complete outage and the length of time that critical operations would be without power.
Having won the Secretary of the Navy Energy Excellence Award in 2023, an award that identifies installations for excellence in the areas of energy security and energy resilience, CFAS comfortably navigated resuming operations and restoring power throughout the exercise without incident.
“Energy resilience is about flexible utility systems that provide uninterrupted power to sustain operations,” said Lt. Cmdr. Tyson Baca, the CFAS Public Works Officer. “Black start tested our ability to leverage backup power sources and safely balance 66,000 volt electrical lines across five sites. The results were outstanding. This not only demonstrates the resiliency of the installation’s infrastructure, but also the determination of our people. The synergy of the Sasebo team is unstoppable.”
For more than 75 years, CFAS has provided, maintained, and operated base facilities and services to empower forward-deployed U.S. and Allied Forces while providing superior support to their families and the community.
| Date Taken: | 11.20.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 11.26.2024 03:33 |
| Story ID: | 486151 |
| Location: | SASEBO, NAGASAKI, JP |
| Web Views: | 120 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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