A key command and control (C2) facility for both U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) and Republic of Korea forces at Camp Walker, Korea, that was plagued by frequent power outages now has reliable power thanks to the facilitywide critical electrical power distribution and heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) system upgrade. A team led by the Product Manager Defense Wide Transmission Systems (PM DWTS), part of the Army’s Program Executive Office Enterprise Information Systems’ (PEO EIS’) Project Manager Defense Communications and Army Transmission Systems (PM DCATS), implemented the HVAC system upgrade.

According to U.S. Air Force MSgt Philip Walker, the USFK J64 Operations Division Noncommissioned Officer-in-Charge (NCOIC) at Camp Walker, what drove the upgrade project was the unreliability of the previous antiquated power and HVAC system and the cascading problems the system suffered — such as the time when the motor in the chiller shorted out, which shorted out the control panel, which tripped the breaker for the main power feed, at which point the entire facility lost power — or the time when one of the distribution panels caught fire.

“The old electric switchgear really looked like Korean War-era technology,” said Walker. “Last winter, we went for weeks without heat and we had to wear coats and gloves indoors at the facility because the HVAC system was so old we couldn’t get parts for it. We had to jury-rig it to make it work.”

Thanks to the upgrade, the C2 facility now has good, reliable power, with nearly double the capacity from 120 kilovolt-amps (kVA) to 225 kVA. Backup power via uninterrupted power supplies (UPS) has been increased from one single 100 kVA UPS — representing a single point of failure — to 160 kVA provided by four separate 40 kVA UPS for backup power in zones. Cooling has been doubled from 70 tons to 140 tons with separate comfort cooling and heating and zone cooling for the data center.

C2 Facility Remained Operational During Upgrade
According to PM DWTS Project Leader Fred Porzio, the team started the upgrade project in October 2007 and it was completed in early January 2008. The team included general contractor American Power Conversion (APC) of West Kingston, RI, installation subcontractor Wells Global of Raleigh, NC, and quality control engineer Randy White of U.S. Army Network Enterprise Technology Command (NETCOM)/9th Army Signal Command Team.

A key factor in the team’s planning was that the C2 facility could not be shut down while they gutted the old power and electrical distribution system. The solution was to bring in a temporary main power line and switchgear for 2 weeks and put that online while they gutted the existing switchgear and built both the new switchgear and electrical distribution system, including new electric panels and subpanels. “Essentially, we built the new system while the old one was running in parallel,” Porzio said.

In addition, the team upgraded the facility’s data center with 30 new data racks including in-row UPS, power distribution units, and eight in-row cooling units, which will allow a 200 percent growth capacity. “Plus, the data center solution is totally mobile,” added Porzio. “It can be moved to another location if the mission moves.”

Walker is impressed by the new data racks’ configuration and capability. “The power strips are high-speed and tell you what kind of power each strip is pulling, so we can balance them between the different phases,” he said. “It makes everything a lot cleaner, a lot nicer in the rows.”

Tom Skuce and Adam Ledwell of APC agreed that coordination was the project’s biggest challenge because the facility’s key C2 mission would not allow them to shut down electrical infrastructure or applications while they migrated services to the new electrical distribution system and new servers. “We couldn’t do it in one big ‘whack’ because we had to keep the mission operational,” said Skuce. “So we did it in phases with four separate power cutovers and about eight separate server cutovers.”

A big plus of the design is that it is “hot-swappable,” allowing removal and replacement of components without shutting down operation. “It’s also a ‘smart’ system,” said Walker. “It does continuous diagnostics and sends alerts via e-mail or text messages if there are power or temperature issues. Before, our notification was getting a call from a user saying, ‘Hey, our system is down.’ Now we can be proactive. In fact, the new power and HVAC system has made the shop’s small staff more effective.

“Now, we’re not spending all our time calling in service orders to get something fixed,” added Walker. “Now, we have more time to do the mission of keeping these C2 systems operational, which is critical because this network provides C2 all the way to the Pentagon. GEN [Burwell B. III] Bell [Commander United Nations Command/Combined Forces Command/USFK] is into these systems all the time and PACOM [U.S. Pacific Command] is, too.”

LTC Clyde Richards, the PM DWTS, noted that in addition to the project at Camp Walker, his organization has also provided critical power infrastructure upgrades for electrical distribution, HVAC, and backup power systems at sites in Japan and CONUS. “We have experienced a growing demand for this type of work, which essentially has become a core competency,” said Richards. “Our power upgrades typically provide automation, redundancy, increased reliability, logistical supportability, and lower maintenance costs.”

Project Team Adapted to Changing Requirements
Walker gives kudos to the entire project team for going with the flow and keeping the complicated project on course. “The whole team, PM DWTS/PM DCATS, NETCOM, the contractors, and the subcontractors, were very professional,” said Walker. “They kept things on schedule or ahead of schedule, and they accommodated us if any requirements changed, such as when the requirement to provide video teleconferencing (VTC) capability at the facility suddenly rose to the top of the list.

“I sent Fred Porzio an e-mail,” said Walker, “I wrote ‘Remember when I mentioned VTC sometime in the future? Well, the future is now.’ Fred found the money. In my mind, Fred went above and beyond in trying to find that money.”

“It was a great job by everybody on the whole team, fantastic closure to the project,” said USFK J64 Director COL James Bieda at the project outbrief at Camp Walker on Jan. 14. “My number one priority was no major outages. Now we’re good for years to come with expandability, reliability, and maintainability.”

Perhaps the best kudos came from Walker, who dealt with the project team on a daily basis.
“We’ve been working five major projects here, and this was the biggest of our projects,” he said. “I would welcome the opportunity to work with Fred [Porzio], Tom [Skuce] or Adam [Ledwell] again. I wish any project I ever had, or will have, went as smoothly as this one.”