Within DOD, the military services and defense agencies are responsible for installation management, with oversight by the office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Energy, Installations, and Environment, who reports to the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics. The office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Energy, Installations, and Environment is responsible for—among other things—issuing facility energy policy and guidance to DOD components and coordinating all congressional reports related to facility energy, including the Energy Reports. In addition, each military service is responsible for developing policies and managing programs related to energy and utility management, and has assigned a command or headquarters to execute these responsibilities. The defense agencies also develop policies and manage energy programs, and each has a designated senior energy official to administer their respective programs. At the installation level, the public works, general facilities, or civil engineering departments oversee and manage the day-to-day energy operations. DOD undergoes an annual process to report on energy data in its Energy Reports, collecting data required by section 2925 of Title 10 of the United States Code for the reports over a 5-month time period. The overall process, with participation by installations, military service headquarters, defense agencies, and OSD, is detailed in figure 1. Across the military services, energy security is considered critical for mission assurance. Energy security is defined by 10 U.S.C. § 2924 as having assured access to reliable supplies of energy and the ability to protect and deliver sufficient energy to meet mission essential requirements. There are multiple ways, although not all are mutually exclusive, to help ensure energy security at installations, including: Diversification of energy sources. To help ensure energy security, installations may seek to obtain energy from multiple sources to prevent reliance on a single source. This may include natural gas, petroleum, coal, and incorporation of renewable sources of energy— e.g., wind, solar, and biodiesel. Use of renewable energy. Installations may work to incorporate renewable energy sources as a way to lessen dependence on the grid, lower energy costs, and increase utility resilience in the event of an outage. For example, renewable energy may be used to power a microgrid, in which the installation can disconnect from the utility grid during an outage and run solely on the renewable energy stored. Energy redundancy. Installations may seek assured access to reliable energy through back-up energy sources that may be used in the event of an outage, such as on-site generators and power plants. Energy conservation. Installations may use energy conservation initiatives as a way to reduce energy consumption, lower energy costs, and ensure that sufficient funds are in place to meet future energy requirements. DOD installations may use one or more of these approaches to help ensure energy security. Each installation’s efforts to help ensure energy security may vary depending on its location, staff resources and funding available, and the nature of energy vulnerabilities identified. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, there is not a single national power grid in the United States. Instead, there are three synchronized power grids that cover the 48 contiguous states that are loosely interconnected with each other: (1) the Eastern Interconnection (serving states generally east of the Rocky Mountains), (2) the Western Interconnection (spanning the area from the Pacific Ocean to the Rocky Mountain states), and (3) a system that serves nearly all of Texas. The electricity systems in Alaska and Hawaii operate independently of the three continental grids and of each other (see fig. 2). In particular, there are several distinct electrical systems within Alaska and Hawaii that cover only portions of the states, such as the interconnections serving Anchorage, Fairbanks, and the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska and the individual islands in Hawaii. Energy-remote installations in Alaska and Hawaii face some unique differences from the installations located in the 48 contiguous states. For example, the cost of energy at energy-remote installations is high in comparison to the cost of energy at installations in the 48 contiguous states. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Hawaii had the highest cost of electricity in the United States in 2013 and 2014, with the average price for commercial customers more than triple the U.S. average. Moreover, in 2013, Hawaii imported 91 percent of the energy it consumed—mostly as oil-based fuels—making it vulnerable to price fluctuations in the energy market and disruptions to the transportation of fuels. In 2013 and 2014, Alaska had the second-highest cost of electricity in the United States, with the average price for commercial customers 64 to 68 percent higher, respectively, than the U.S. average. In addition, the U.S. Energy Information Administration stated that in many areas of Alaska, commercially-supplied electricity is not available and consumers must generate their own electricity, sometimes using diesel generators, which have a high cost of operations. Given Alaska’s extreme weather environments, its energy demand per person is the third highest in the nation. Of the 12 reporting requirements for DOD’s Energy Report, our analysis showed that the department fully addressed 6, partially addressed 4, and did not address 2. The requirements fully addressed included describing actions taken to implement the energy performance master plan and energy savings realized from such actions, among other requirements. The requirements partially addressed included describing progress made to achieve three of five energy goals; a table detailing funding, by account, for all energy projects funded through appropriations; a table listing all energy projects financed through third party financing mechanisms; and details of utility outages at military installations. The requirements not addressed were information on renewable energy certificates associated with energy projects financed through third-party financing mechanisms and a description of the types and amount of financial incentives received. According to OSD officials, these requirements were not fully addressed for a number of reasons, such as inclusion of the information in another report and concerns about public release. However, DOD did not identify that the information could be found elsewhere or that it had public release concerns to clarify why it did not include required elements. Table 1 below summarizes our assessment of the extent to which DOD’s report included each of the required reporting elements. Appendix II includes our detailed evaluation of each of the required reporting elements, including the reasons OSD officials provided for any requirements that were not fully addressed. We found that the required reporting elements were not all met because OSD’s process for producing the Energy Report did not ensure this occurred. Specifically, in 2011, OSD developed its current process for collecting energy data and producing the Energy Report, including a standard format that it populates each year with updated narrative and energy data. This process, however, did not account for certain steps. For example, the process step of deciding what data to collect from the installations did not identify all data to be captured to fulfill the requirements. OSD’s guidance and template for collecting energy data did not include instructions to collect these data. As a result, OSD did not have comprehensive data to report on requirements such as financial incentives and renewable energy certificates received from utility energy service contracts and energy savings performance contracts. Additionally, OSD’s process step for consolidating specific requirements into the written report had not been reexamined in several years, resulting in some requirements remaining unaddressed. Specifically, the decisions OSD made in 2011 for consolidating requirements into the Energy Report have not been updated or examined. For example, our review of the fiscal year 2014 Energy Report, issued in May 2015, found that many of the required reporting elements that were not fully addressed in the fiscal year 2013 Energy Report were also not fully addressed in the fiscal year 2014 Energy Report. Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government call for agencies to update internal control activities when necessary to provide reasonable assurance for effectiveness of operations and compliance with applicable laws and regulations. Without further updates or examination of OSD’s process for producing the Energy Report, DOD is at risk of future annual reports also falling short of providing congressional decision makers with a complete and accurate understanding of the extent to which DOD has fulfilled select energy performance goals. In our review of DOD’s Energy Report, we found that the underlying data correctly reflected input from the military services and defense agencies. However, DOD’s report was not fully reliable because the data and other inputs the military services and defense agencies provided were captured using different methods and thus hindered comparability. In our review of DOD’s fiscal year 2013 Energy Report, we found that the vast majority of the data and other input submitted by the military services and defense agencies were correctly reflected in the published Energy Report. Any inaccuracies we found were insignificant. Specifically, in comparing the data submitted by the military services and defense agencies to the published Energy Report, we found 2 inaccuracies out of nearly 2,000 data inputs provided. For example, DOD received information about energy consumption and cost by square footage from 705 installations and facilities. However, DOD did not include in the published report information on four facilities from the National Reconnaissance Office and one facility from the Air Force—an exclusion of less than 1 percent of the total number of installations that could have been reported. DOD responded that it chose not to include installation data for sensitivity reasons. Additionally, we found DOD incorrectly published in the Energy Report 1 out of 1,288 appropriated projects as contributing to energy efficiency goals rather than renewable energy goals. However, in July 2015, we reported on material inaccuracies in duration and cost data on utility disruptions reported in DOD’s fiscal year 2012 and 2013 Energy Reports. Regarding the duration of disruptions, we reported that three of the four military services reported some disruptions that were less than the DOD criteria of commercial utility service disruptions lasting 8 hours or longer. According to a DOD official, these disruptions constituted about 12 percent of the 266 disruptions DOD reported in the fiscal year 2012 and 2013 Energy Reports.