Operational Energy Capability Improvement

Mission— Nuclear Power

This project is at the forefront of a revolution in military power, spearheading DOD 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 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 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 DOD, 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 sustainable development.

Mission— OECIF

The OECIF project is the engine driving enhanced DOD operational effectiveness through targeted Science & Technology (S&T) investments. This project strategically prioritizes technologies enabling OE integration, supporting operations in contested environments and seamlessly embedding energy awareness into DOD command and control architectures. By harnessing energy data and information to improve decision-making, the OECIF project is developing a critical OE data layer as an integral part of JADC2 and, in-turn, transforming the battlespace. Specifically, S&T investments in this project are focused on: 1. 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. 2. Revolutionizing Mission Planning: Improving mission-planning tools and analytics while providing warfighters with unparalleled situational awareness and decision-making capabilities. 3. Empowering Operational Control: Increasing operational control and decision-making for power and energy at all warfighting echelons, enabling more agile and responsive operations with an emphasis on classification consideration. 4. 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. 5. 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. 6. 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 future innovation. All six technology areas within this project directly support the DOD’s OE Strategy Enterprise-wide Energy Visibility (EWEV) line of effort, contributing to a more resilient and effective force. Program-wide administrative costs are also part of this project code and include transparency and accountability tools for the program and the OE-Innovation community, inclusion of warfighters into the projects enhancing technology awareness and adoption, and power and energy subject matter expertise.

Mission— Operational Energy Resilience

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 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.

Mission— Operational Energy Demand Reduction

The OE Demand Reduction project is revolutionizing operational energy management by driving innovations that: • Shrink the Logistical Footprint: Reduce 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: Increase efficiencies for aviation and space domains, enabling longer mission durations, greater payload capacity, and enhanced operational effectiveness. • Mitigate Critical Vulnerabilities: Reduce risks by providing next-generation power and energy delivery options, such as power beaming, creating a more resilient and adaptable force. • Dominate the Information Domain: Enable 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, reduce energy consumption, and/or increase range/endurance. The project also focuses 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.

Mission— Operational Energy Capability Improvement (OECI)

OE innovation is the cornerstone of the future Joint Force, preserving command, control, and communications at all echelons and ensuring: • increased lethality • agile, integrated, shaping, and pulsed operations • survivable and sustainable capabilities across domains and in any environment including contested and extreme ones (i.e., Arctic and Space) • decisive information and decision advantage. OECI powers this future by investing in early-stage energy innovation for military capabilities, incentivizing the Components to achieve energy superiority for U.S. Joint Forces and missions. The OECI program accelerates the transition of pre-commercial, military-unique technologies, promoting rapid fielding to warfighters. OECI is innovating today for energy superiority tomorrow, delivering unmatched value to the DOD warfighter by: • Boosting lethality and supportability • Enhancing operational readiness and responsiveness • Extending operational capabilities and endurance for advanced platforms and weapons OECI's technical thrust areas are: • Operational Energy and Power Projection: Giving U.S. forces operational flexibility, freedom to operate at will, and a qualitative edge in all domains (including space and cyber), through implementation of advanced energy technologies. Investments include novel platform structures and power plant solutions for extended duration and enabling and enhancing maneuver without regret (including next-generation power and energy delivery (power beaming)). • Operational Energy Surety: Ensuring U.S. forces, capabilities, and missions assured, robust, and resilient access to energy, including powering energy magazines (missile defense, Golden Dome, and counter-UAS) and data centers in the homeland and abroad. Technical areas include fuel fabrication processes, energy conversion, novel power generation, and energy storage and distribution technologies. • Please see higher classification for additional information. OECIF is laser-focused on accelerating solutions to critical OE capability gaps, delivering game-changing technologies that advance contested logistics, command energy resources, and electrify the battlespace. Select successes include: • TRISO Fuel Production: Reclaiming America's Nuclear Leadership: Established the only domestic, commercial TRISO nuclear fuel production capability in the US, eliminating a critical vulnerability in our nuclear infrastructure. This strategic capability is now enabling terrestrial and space RDT&E demonstrations, Service SMR initiatives at installations, and the national civilian advancement of advanced nuclear power, benefiting both utility and DOD applications and solidifying America's leadership in nuclear energy. • Revolutionary Airframe Prototyping: Redefining Airpower: Advanced oblique-angle flying wing (OAFW) technology, delivering unprecedented endurance, range, and altitude performance (greater than 40% increase) in under 12 months. These airframe advancements are applicable and scalable across multiple joint communities, advancing lift, refueling, and signature management and promising to redefine the future of airpower. • DHVPE: Securing Dominance in Space: Innovations are driving down the cost of space-qualified PV, reducing launch weight, and maturing power beaming components, enabling increased maneuverability and survivability in space and ensuring U.S. dominance in this critical domain. • Power Beaming: Projecting Power Across the Battlespace: Power beaming advancements have been made in multiple modalities (RF, Optical/Laser, mm Wave), accelerating the maturation of transmit, receive, beam forming/steering/safety capabilities and demonstrating concepts across modalities. This positions the U.S. as the undisputed leader in wireless power technology, enabling a new era of energy delivery. • Airborne Energy Delivery: Guaranteeing Resupply in Contested Environments: Innovations are increasing the standoff distance and accuracy for airborne energy delivery in contested environments, including GPS-denied environments, guaranteeing that ground forces receive the energy resupply they need to fight and win, regardless of the threat environment. • Power and Thermal management for energy magazine: Underpinning advancements for current laser technology use and scaling to support increasing future demands. The OECI program has a proven track record of successfully transitioning emerging OE capabilities, with over 80% of completed projects moving into practical application. Specifically, 117 of 132 completed projects have transitioned to: follow-on funding; equipment for CCMD exercises and demonstrations; knowledge or analytic tools supporting the Joint OE community; or commercial markets. OECI has been instrumental in advancing critical capabilities for energy-efficient shelters, ground vehicle efficiency, high-power weapons and power beaming, energy storage for unmanned systems, nuclear power, and technologies addressing key capability gaps, enabling the ability to command energy, power the force, and electrify the battlespace.

Accomplishments & Planned Programs (4)