Fort McCoy Garrison’s Black Start exercise is underway.
During the exercise, power to the installation has been shut down for a determined length of time.
Black Start is an energy resilience readiness exercise designed to test the installation’s emergency and standby energy generation systems, key infrastructure, and equipment. Garrison personnel will learn from exercise outcomes about the infrastructure needs for crucial installation missions in the event of a power loss.
The Black Start exercise construct was designed following the Congressional mandate requiring Department of Defense services to test their ability to operate without power in an emergency.
According to the Department of Defense Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Environment and Energy Resilience at https://www.acq.osd.mil/eie/eer/cr/ie/exercises.html, 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.
“They align installation organizations with critical missions to ensure the ability to meet critical mission requirements, validate mission operation plans, identify infrastructure interdependencies, and verify backup electric power system performance,” the website states. “Similarly, energy resilience table-top exercises are simulated, war-room exercises that assess an installation’s ability to respond to different power disruption scenarios and are utilized when a Black Start exercise is unfeasible.”
The exercise will be challenging for those who work and live on post, but adhering to the following advice can reduce stress for everyone involved.
Tips, like leaving the refrigerator closed to help keep things cold, as well as other important preparation information can be found on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/FtMcCoy, and on the Fort McCoy website http://www.home.army.mil/mccoy.
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