Operational Energy Capability Improvement (OECI)

The OECIF project is the pre-commercial engine driving enhanced DoW operational effectiveness through targeted Science & Technology (S&T) investments. This project strategically prioritizes technologies enabling OE integration, supporting operations in contested / strategic environments and seamlessly embedding energy awareness into DoW command and control architectures. By harnessing energy data and information for improving decision-making, the OECI project is developing a critical OE data layer within all CJADC2 data platforms as an integral part of JADC2 and, in-turn, transforming the battlespace. Specifically, S&T investments in this project are focused on: • Real-Time Power and Energy Performance Assessment: Providing state-of-the-art metering and monitoring of platform/system capabilities, delivering real-time performance assessment for optimized resource allocation. • Revolutionizing Mission Planning: Improving mission-planning tools and analytics while providing warfighters with unparalleled situational awareness and decision-making capabilities. • Empowering Operational Control: Increasing operational control and decision-making for power and energy at and between all warfighting echelons, enabling more agile and responsive operations with an emphasis on classification consideration. • Data-Driven Decision-Making: Developing next-generation OE modeling and simulation tools that quantify operational and business case impacts, empowering senior leaders to make informed decisions based on data-driven insights. • Informing Strategic Investments: Bringing power and energy innovation knowledge and analytics to warfighters and senior leaders, informing future acquisition, sustainment, and budget decisions and ensuring that investments are aligned with critical operational needs. • Cultivating Expertise: Delivering foundational training and education on power and energy innovation across the military and S&T communities, building a cadre of experts who can drive and exploit future innovation. All six technology areas within this project directly support the DoW’s OE Strategy Enterprise-wide Energy Visibility (EWEV) line of effort, contributing to a more resilient and effective force.

This project is revolutionizing operational energy resilience, a critical force multiplier enabling operational flexibility, freedom of maneuver, and guaranteeing mission success in any environment. By driving innovations across key technical areas, this project is ensuring that U.S. Joint Forces have the energy they need, when and where they need it. The project's strategic focus areas include: • Next-Generation Capabilities: Powering the Future Battlespace: Investing in high-power weapons enablers, advanced energy storage devices, power and thermal management technologies, energy magazines, and energy innovations optimized for arctic operations, ensuring that U.S. forces maintain a decisive advantage in any environment, including the most challenging and contested • Energy Diversification: Expanding the Energy Arsenal: Focusing on Space and Arctic storage and use technologies including hydrogen, and Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) fuel cell technologies; expanding the range of available energy sources through innovative production and distribution methods, and providing power, fuel, and heat from waste resources thereby reducing reliance on vulnerable supply chains • Interoperability and Standardization: Creating a Seamless and Assured Energy Use: Investing in tactical micro-gridding, electrical and communication standards, and energy component commonality for multiplatform applications, ensuring seamless integration across the force and enabling more agile and responsive operations By pursuing these strategic objectives, this project is transforming operational energy resilience, expanding warfighter capability and safety, and ensuring that U.S. forces are prepared to meet the challenges of the future.

The OE Demand Reduction project is revolutionizing operational energy management by driving innovations that: • Shrink the Logistical Footprint: Reducing operational energy demand, minimizing reliance on vulnerable supply lines, and freeing up resources for other critical missions. • Maximize Performance in the Air and Space Domains: Increasing efficiencies for aviation and space domains, enabling longer mission durations, greater payload capacity, and enhancing operational effectiveness. • Mitigate Critical Vulnerabilities: Reducing risks by providing next-generation power and energy delivery options, such as power beaming, creating a less vulnerable, more resilient, and adaptable force. • Dominate the Information Domain: Enabling exploitation of critical power system signatures through Cyber-physical Power ISR Protection (C PIP), providing a decisive intelligence advantage by determining force capabilities and informing sustainment actions in both domestic and austere environments. To achieve these ambitious goals, the project focuses on: • Aviation Efficiency- Transforming Air Operations: Investing in innovations to gain efficiency and lower energy consumption through advances in aviation powerplants (e.g., uncrewed electrification, hybridization, etc.), flight software planning tools, inflight algorithms, composite airframe structures, and propulsion power options, enabling longer-range, more efficient, and more stealthy air operations. • Space Efficiency- Powering Dominance in Space: Investing in power and energy (generation, transmission, storage, and resupply) for space access (platform launch and orbital transfer), platform maneuver and station keeping/resupply, and platform operation capabilities that improve energy efficiency, reducing energy consumption, and/or increasing range/endurance. These projects also focus on innovations that dramatically reduce the cost of production and/or launch weight of critical space components, ensuring U.S. dominance in this critical domain and supporting U.S. manufacturing and supply chains.

This project is at the forefront of a revolution in military power, spearheading DoW innovations in nuclear power (fission reactors and radioisotope power systems) and enabling joint operations across all domains. Recognized as a strategic priority, nuclear power is poised to redefine energy surety by: • Unleashing Unprecedented Power Density: Maximizing the energy density of existing power systems by approximately 1,000,000x, enabling prolonged operations, reducing logistical dependencies, and providing a decisive advantage in strategic and contested environments. • Extending Reach to the Most Remote Locations: Enhancing power system lifetime in remote and austere locations, guaranteeing reliable power for critical missions, regardless of the environment. • Liberating Personnel for Mission-Critical Tasks: Minimizing the operational burden on personnel compared to traditional power systems (e.g., chemical batteries and fossil fuels), freeing up valuable resources for other vital military tasks and increasing overall operational effectiveness. 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, transforming the future of military power and ensuring U.S. dominance in the 21st century. To realize this vision, this project is driving critical technology improvements in the supply chain and power conversion efficiency of both small and large RPS and fission subsystems and components, as well as de-risking complete fission mobile nuclear reactor systems. These transformative technology development efforts include investments in cutting-edge materials like smart carbon/carbon, shielding optimizations, betavoltaics, alphavoltaics, alpha photovoltaics, Stirling energy conversion technology, and supercritical CO2 energy conversion loops (sCO2). The nuclear power portfolio also funds rigorous studies to ensure the safety and security of these revolutionary technology investments, prioritizing responsible and U.S. sustainable development.