The Department of Defense (DoD) faces the substantial challenge of cost-effectively retrofitting one
to two installations per month, each comprising approximately 1,000 buildings, to improve resilience,
reduce energy consumption, and enhance energy supply security. Achieving these objectives requires
optimal system selection and effective risk mitigation during system integration. To address this need,
we introduce Platform-Based Design (PBD), a structured, hierarchical methodology adapted from
other industrial sectors to the domain of energy system retrofits. We demonstrate the effectiveness
of PBD through a techno-economic feasibility study comparing geothermal-coupled thermal energy
networks (TENs) with conventional energy systems for heating, cooling, and powering 17 buildings
at Joint Base Andrews (JBA) in Maryland.
Our analysis illustrates that the PBD approach enables rigorous, data-driven, sequential decision making,
resulting in a family of Pareto-optimal systems, among...