Energy security

Solar Contribution to National Security

Americans think about national security in terms of what is routinely captured in major news headlines: North Korea, ISIS, Russian election meddling and more. While important, our country’s national security is defined by much more than a handful of big-ticket threats. U.S. national security relies on a complex and interdependent mosaic of factors, some of which are not normally associated with national security, but in reality play an important role in augmenting our nation’s strength.

One example is solar energy, which has risen to become a key element in our country’s energy security portfolio — at a time when its future viability has come under attack from within the solar industry itself.

America is stronger when it can count on its own energy sources, and solar is gradually playing a bigger role in our nation’s energy mix. Solar energy’s importance to U.S. national security stems most directly from the critical role it now plays in providing energy to far-flung military bases throughout the United States and abroad.

The military is the single largest consumer of energy in the United States. Clean, stable energy sources remain a priority to the Department of Defense, which prizes secure and affordable energy resources to power its military installations and other facilities. Unplanned power outages can quickly curtail the effectiveness of those facilities, making alternatives to dependence on the traditional energy grid critically important to Defense operations.