Operational Energy Capability Improvement

The Operational Energy Dominance (OED) project enhances DoW operational effectiveness through pre-commercial targeted Science & Technology (S&T) investments, transforming energy data into a battlefield advantage across both homeland defense and Indo-Pacific deterrence missions. By embedding energy situational awareness into command and control (C2) architectures, OED enables warfighters to outpace adversaries with smarter, faster decisions in contested environments. The OED portfolio achieves this mission through three strategic thrusts: Collect, Camouflage, and Control. • Collect: OED digitizes legacy power systems (generators, batteries, and distribution nodes), integrating them into the operational data environment to eliminate blind spots and enhance situational awareness while simultaneously developing and deploying first-of-a-kind sensing capabilities to the front lines • Camouflage: OED leverages power intelligence products from the Collect thrust to locate and mitigate threat surfaces within the power systems of critical military systems • Control: OED exploits both power intelligence products and identified threat surfaces to create tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) that expose the pacing threats and deliver overmatch opportunities for U.S. Forces operating in the Indo-Pacific and homeland environments OED portfolio investments yield: 1. Enhanced mission-planning tools with integrated energy analytics 2. Increased operational control of energy assets at every echelon 3. Advanced metering and monitoring across modern and legacy platforms 4. Modeling and simulation tools translating energy impacts into operational outcomes 5. Actionable energy insights informing acquisition, sustainment, and budget decisions 6. Foundational training embedding energy innovation across warfighters and the S&T community All focus areas align with the DoW’s OE Strategy, ensuring energy data informs operations, logistics, and readiness. Program-wide efforts prioritize transparency tools, warfighter inclusion, and subject matter expertise that accelerate the adoption and impact of OECIF investments. FY 2027 priorities emphasize energy technologies that support homeland energy resilience, forward-deployed power awareness, and extended-range operations under contested logistics conditions. There is a classified addendum to this PE.

The Operational Energy and Power Projection (OE&PP) project powers the future of the DoW by delivering energy at the point of need, enabling mission success anywhere on earth and in space. The portfolio strategically invests in three critical areas: Power Beaming, Space, and Counter-Uncrewed Aerial Systems. • Power Beaming: Projecting Energy Across the Battlespace: This area is pushing energy forward with high-efficiency wireless power technology, including transmitters, relays, and receivers, and providing on-demand power to remote locations including space and uncrewed applications. • Space: Unleashing the Power of Space-Based Energy: This area is developing state-of-the-art (lighter, lower cost) solar cells and battery technology maximizing energy generation and storage capabilities in space. It also leverages robotics for on-orbit assembly of large solar arrays and refueling of satellites, dramatically increasing the availability of energy in the space domain for maneuver without regret and energy magazine. • Counter-Uncrewed Aerial Systems: Enhancing the operational resilience of critical energy infrastructure by integrating a Laser Systems and High-Power Microwave (HPM) counter-Unmanned Aerial System (cUAS) capability into existing power beaming transmitters. This leverages the dual-use potential of power beaming, enabling a seamless transition between power delivery to vital assets and directed energy threat neutralization. This approach mitigates the increasing vulnerability of Operational Energy (OE) assets to UAS attacks, particularly those that utilize advanced technologies resistant to conventional electronic warfare

The Advanced Operational Energy Mobility (OEM) portfolio accelerates Joint Force freedom of maneuver by transforming assured energy access into operational reach, tempo, and sustained movement across contested, austere, and denied environments. Building on prior Operational Energy Surety investments, P-456 shifts emphasis toward operationalized mobility outcomes, enabling forces to move farther, persist longer, reduce identifying heat and acoustic signatures, and maneuver with reduced logistical burden across air, land, and maritime domains. These efforts directly align with National Defense Strategy priorities, including Indo-Pacific operations, contested logistics, Arctic access, and distributed air, maritime, and land maneuver. The portfolio emphasizes 1) Air Mobility 2) Land and Maritime Mobility, and 3) integrating multi-domain operational energy solutions. Together these elements triangulate operational energy innovation into a maneuvering advantage, increasing operational tempo, duration, and force employment. OEM delivers critical enablers for operational flexibility by expanding freedom of maneuver through: • Aviation Mobility - advances energy delivery, airframes, propulsion, and intelligent power management extending range, persistence, and freedom of action of crewed and uncrewed aviation platforms, reducing sortie demand while enabling operational mobility and aviation overmatch. • Land and Maritime Mobility - advances operational duration for ground/maritime platforms including extending operational reach, enabling silent watch and silent mobility, and maintaining power in austere and contested environments. These efforts ensure energy availability at the tactical edge while enabling crewed, uncrewed, and autonomous maneuver across land, sea, and sub-surface domains. • Operational Energy Integration – advances and enables energy technologies across domains, platforms, and electrical grids, enhancing lethality, mobility, and maneuver in contested environments. OE integration includes operationalizing energy for high-powered directed energy weapons and radar systems in support of Golden Dome, producing energy at the tactical edge, and enabling energy prepositioning and storage.

This project is revolutionizing DoW operations by spearheading innovations in nuclear power in advanced nuclear reactors and radioisotope power systems (RPS) for Joint operations and across all domains. As a strategic priority for the Administration, nuclear power is poised to transform energy surety by: • Unleashing Unprecedented Energy Density: Increasing the energy density of existing fossil fuel systems by approximately 1,000,000x, enabling longer mission durations and reduced logistical dependencies. • Extending Power Lifetimes in Extreme Environments: Dramatically extending power system lifetime in remote and austere locations, ensuring reliable power for critical operations in challenging environments. • Reducing the Risk and Burden on Personnel: Decreasing operational risk and burden on personnel compared to traditional power systems (e.g., chemical batteries and fossil fuels), lessoning high risk re-supply logistics and freeing up military resources for other mission-critical tasks. The nuclear power portfolio's investments are focused on making nuclear technologies safer, lighter, more secure, more efficient, more economical, and more operational for the DoW. To achieve these goals, this project is driving technology improvements in the supply chain and power conversion efficiency of RPS and fission subsystems and components, as well as de-risking complete fission mobile nuclear reactor systems. These technology development efforts include investments in cutting-edge materials like efficient carbon/carbon, shielding optimizations, betavoltaics, alphavoltaics, alpha photovoltaics, Stirling energy conversion technology, and supercritical CO2 energy conversion systems (sCO2). The nuclear power portfolio also funds studies exploring the regulatory needs and warfighter training for safely and efficiently deploying nuclear technologies.