As the Obama administration increasingly spotlights the military's interest in reducing its energy use and switching to alternative sources, it today called for an increase in Defense Department energy programs, even as controversial cuts to the military set in.

The weightiest energy investment in the $525.4 billion budget proposed for the department would be to energy conservation projects at military bases. DOD owns hundreds of thousands of buildings, many of which are decades old, and which rack up an annual electricity bill of $4 billion. In its 2013 budget proposal, the Obama administration calls for about $1 billion in energy conservation measures -- more than double what the department spent on such efforts in 2010.

It is an investment that could have a major impact on the building retrofit market, which is relatively small. DOD officials already recognize their ability to shape that market and have made retrofits and related measures one of their energy technology priorities.

Today's budget proposal also calls for an increase to DOD's energy testbed program, which has proven immensely popular with industry. The initiative, which deploys a handful of nascent energy technologies at military installations in an effort to bring them to market faster, would receive a 7 percent increase, bringing its budget to $32 million.

After calling out the Navy's alternative energy efforts in the State of the Union address, the administration is looking to support the goal with an 11 percent increase to the Energy Conservation Investment Program, which funds renewable and efficiency projects at military bases. That would bring the program's budget to $150 million.

But some of the projects that stand to have the biggest impact on the military's energy use do not show up in DOD's budget. As the services look to vastly increase the amount of renewable power produced on their land and implement energy conservation projects, they are turning to third-party financing measures like Energy Savings Performance Contracts, where private companies provide the upfront capital and are paid through the savings. President Obama called on the federal government to increase its use of such mechanisms in December, and the services have been moving to meet that goal (Greenwire, Jan. 26).

Even as operations in Afghanistan draw down, battlefield energy projects are still proving popular. Under the budget request, the Army would see $10 million for research related to combat energy use, following an additional $18 million that the department received for such efforts under the omnibus funding package passed late last year (Greenwire, Jan. 31).

Science and technology research is one of the high-priority areas DOD officials are looking to protect from cuts. The budget request proposes $69.4 billion for research, development, testing and evaluation, and cites "cleaner and more efficient energy use" as a key focus. Such funding would support recent efforts like those of Air Force scientists studying birds' flight formations to develop more energy-efficient flight formations, Navy researchers searching for ways of turning ocean water into power, and Army investigators developing technologies that would capture energy from soldiers as they march.