The Air Force wants to bring together a host of financiers, small businesses, non-traditional defense contractors and an administrative team to manage public-private projects directed at increasing energy resilience at service installations, according to a draft solicitation released today.

The group, called the Consortium Management Organization (CMO), would eventually establish and monitor a Defense Energy Consortium (DECo) aimed at closing power gaps across the service.

“Members of the consortium will be responsible for fully financing potential projects using private capital to increase the energy resilience and mission assurance of [Air Force] installations worldwide,” according to the draft request for proposals to select a CMO.

The service will work with the CMO team to put together a Consortium Management Agreement and eventually will award prototype agreements to the CMO “as the entity authorized to represent the consortium member or team that proposed the prototype project.”

The DECo may propose solutions in areas like energy resilience technologies, extreme weather hardening, resilient facility technologies, installation-specific processes and commercial energy demonstrations.

“Because DECo will rely on private financing, DECo’s programmatic, legal, and fiduciary roles and responsibilities will be materially different from the standard DOD [Other Transaction Authority] consortium business model and will require [the Air Force] and the down selected CMO to iterate, deliberate, and negotiate novel business processes and terms and conditions for a CMA to establish DECo,” the draft solicitation states.

Congress has mandated that all Defense Department installations achieve at least 99.9% energy resiliency year-round by 2030, according to the notice, to ensure national security operations are rarely interrupted. That metric would allow just 8.76 hours without power annually.

The Air Force alone has identified about 4,000 resilience gaps at its installations worldwide that “need rapid and cost-effective mitigation,” it added.

“DECo will not guarantee any appropriated funding for either the CMO nor obligated funds for future prototype projects awarded through the CMO,” the draft notice states.

Instead, the CMO is expected to work with the Air Force at its own expense by financing the entire cost of energy services prototypes, “provided DOD provides some form of consideration, such as access to [Air Force] property and facilities.”

The service is hosting an industry day on June 29 to receive feedback from interested vendors and finalize the CMO request for proposal.

Once the CMO and subsequent CMA are established, the group will begin to build DECo’s membership globally.