American troops training to fight in Afghanistan have completed an eight-day exercise in the field using solar power as their only source of energy.
The 150 marines of Company I, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, used solar panels, solar-powered generators for tactical power needs and solar-fuelled heating and cooling for the duration of the mission.
During training drills in August at 29 Palms, in the California desert, the 3/5 never turned on a generator to power its combat operations centre. Indeed, the operation was deemed to be such a success that the soldiers may have to leave their bulky petrol-powered generators and A/C batteries.
President Barack Obama has called upon America’s armed forces to begin switching to renewable energy technology to escape the “tyranny of fuel,” which has left US soldiers and supply teams at the mercy of surprise attacks and ambushes, like the recent petrol tanker bombings on the Pakistan border.
The main aim of the exercise was to have the marines establish an experimental “forward operating base,” or ExFOB, command centre, using a wide variety of different solar energy generators, energy efficient tents and water purification devices.
After a week of tests at 29 Palms, officials narrowed this down to a handful of systems that the Company will take to war.
Another renewable energy system the the marines tested for use in Afghanistan is the aptly-named “ground renewable expeditionary energy system (GREENS).” GREENS was produced by the Naval Surface Warfare Centre and supplies 300 watts of electricity. It provided an ExFOB with 196 hours of constant power using four hybrid deep cycle batteries that can be recharged with solar panels, plus a converter and a controller that marines can set up with relative ease.
