USS Bataan Receives Energy Excellence Award

The Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Bataan (LHD 5) received the Secretary of the Navy (SECNAV) Energy Excellence Award, afloat large amphibious category, for actions performed during fiscal year 2019 while preparing for deployment in support of maritime security operations and theater security cooperation efforts in the U.S. 2nd, 5th and 6th Fleet area of operations.

The SECNAV Energy Excellence Awards recognize those Navy and Marine Corps activities that demonstrate exceptional leadership and sustained excellence in energy program management, contributing to energy security, improved readiness and mission capability across the Department of the Navy (DoN).

Bataan’s leadership team aggressively promoted energy conservation and awareness by embracing the guidance and strategies provided in the Shipboard Energy Conservation Guide. As a result, Bataan made significant strides in energy conservation throughout fiscal year 2019, setting the standard for engineering and navigation excellence.

"Our team of disciplined professionals spent many late hours honing their skills in all facets of shipboard readiness," said Capt. Bryan Carmichael, commanding officer of Bataan. "I could not be more proud of the men and women of ‘Big 5’ and we acknowledge their hard work through this truly prestigious award."

During command indoctrination Sailors are provided energy conservation and pollution abatement training ensuring they understand the importance and necessity of energy conservation.

One of the many ways Bataan succeeded was their conservation of fuel while in-port steaming and during underway steaming by reducing the amount of redundant equipment online within the engineering plant.

"Bataan incorporated energy conservation into our daily operation by ensuring our fan coil units were kept clean and aggressively worked on ones that were in high use," said Cmdr. Jon Miller, Bataan’s chief engineering officer. "Furthermore, the engineering plant was configured for economy steaming operations during all available opportunities to ensure maximum fuel economy during long periods in-between underway replenishments during the global COVID pandemic. Ship personnel were trained in keeping thermostats set and maintaining air conditioning boundaries in unusually arduous heat environments while deployed to the Arabian Gulf during the summer months."

Bataan recently returned from a seven-month deployment, where 2,500 Sailors and embarked Marines worked with regional allies and partners to conduct training and at-sea exercises. They are now preparing to enter a planned maintenance period.