Work will support U.S. Air Force energy goals
SAN ANTONIO — Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) has been awarded a contract worth up to $49 million from the U.S. Air Force. The contract will focus on research and development efforts to implement and transition energy efficiency and alternative energy technologies to meet U.S. Air Force goals.
This Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity contract award supports the Air Force Research Laboratory Rapid Assessment of Technologies and Energy for the Advanced Power and Technology Office. IDIQs are contract vehicles that fund work tasks over specified periods of time. The SwRI contract period is for seven years.
“SwRI is developing and testing a range of novel energy systems applicable from space exploration to next-generation automotive platforms to renewable energy power grids,” said SwRI’s Dr. Kent Coulter, co-program manager for the contract award. “This diversity in our expertise has provided us the opportunity to work with AFRL on areas of interest to the U.S. Air Force.”
The first task of the contract, funded for $500,000, is to design, develop and demonstrate data center modeling techniques to determine methods to optimize energy consumption.
“Data centers use nearly 2.5 percent of the energy produced in the United States,” said SwRI’s Greg Fletcher, leader of the first task order and co-program manager for the IDIQ award. “SwRI is working with the U.S. Air Force to optimize its data centers, which will have sweeping benefits across government and industry, and reduce energy consumption throughout this rapidly growing sector.”
