NAVFAC EXWC Director Lectures on Microgrids at Stanford University

James Stossel | NAVFAC EXWC Public Affairs

PORT HUENEME, Calif. (Aug. 15, 2023) ─ Last week, Dr. William “Bill” Anderson was a guest lecturer at Stanford’s Doerr School of Sustainability. The class, “Resilience in the DOD” was part of Stanford’s “Energy Storage Integration” curriculum. After the class, Dr. Anderson visited Stanford’s microgrid laboratory at the Agramonte Ranch Research and Conservation Center in Half Moon Bay.

Dr. Anderson’s work is a wonderful example of EXWC’s efforts to collaborate with academia in areas important to the Navy. This synergy is evidenced by the fact that the Doerr School’s first partnership was with the Naval Postgraduate School (NPA) in Monterey. Stanford Professor Dan Sambor and his microgrid team are working with EXWC to help solve our most vexing microgrid challenges, to include delivering more climate resilience and water security through renewable energy microgrids in Micronesia and Europe. Meanwhile, Stanford’s DoD liaison, Mark McVay, is developing relationships with EXWC and senior Navy leadership to meet climate resilience mandates. Reciprocal visits of Stanford personnel to EXWC’s Microgrid Testbed and San Nicolas Island’s microgrid are being planned.

Dr. Anderson’s research to increase climate resilience through renewable energy microgrids, guest lecturing on his research at the U.S. Naval Academy, being recently published in an IEEE Microgrid textbook, and now collaborating with Stanford’s Doerr School has positioned him as the Navy’s, and arguably DOD’s, subject matter expert for microgrids. Dr. Anderson and NPS representatives are coauthoring a “Military Microgrids” textbook to help the service academies implement a Renewable Energy Microgrid curriculum by adopting his curriculum and case studies. Dr. Anderson is the Director of Utilities & Energy Management at NAVFAC EXWC, formerly a management consultant with McKinsey & Company, and previously a career U.S. Naval Civil Engineer Corps Officer.

The Naval Facilities Engineering and Expeditionary Warfare Center (NAVFAC EXWC) is a U.S. Navy command of more than 1,100 dedicated federal employees, military personnel, and contractors who provide research, development, testing and evaluation, in-service engineering, and lifecycle management for shore, oceans, and expeditionary domains.

The Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability focuses on “climate change” and “sustainability.” It opened on September 1, 2022, as Stanford's first new school since 1948. It is one of the largest climate-change–related schools in the United States.