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GEO in NY, the future energy source?

hot_rod
hot_rod Member Posts: 22,018

Comments

  • NY_Rob
    NY_Rob Member Posts: 1,370
    Very interesting.... at least it's clean and inexhaustible.
  • hot_rod
    hot_rod Member Posts: 22,018
    I never made the time to learn enough about refrigeration technology. Seems it will be a must for the next generation wetheads.
    Bob "hot rod" Rohr
    trainer for Caleffi NA
    Living the hydronic dream
    Rich_49
  • Jamie Hall
    Jamie Hall Member Posts: 23,159
    Just keep in mind that geothermal either needs heat pumps or water pumps to work (which you need depends on just how hot your geothermal source is)(the exception -- there is always an exception! -- is when your geothermal source is both hot and artesian. There are a few.). Pumps need power. Not saying that it isn't a very good technology... but you do need a power source for the pumps or heat pumps.
    Br. Jamie, osb
    Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England
    GBart
  • Erin Holohan Haskell
    Erin Holohan Haskell Member, Moderator, Administrator Posts: 2,276
    Dandelion Energy has been busy. They launched this all-in-one home heating and air conditioning system yesterday: https://heatinghelp.com/industry-news/dandelion-launches-the-dandelion-air/
    President
    HeatingHelp.com
    Robert O'Brien
  • STEVEusaPA
    STEVEusaPA Member Posts: 6,506

    Dandelion Energy has been busy. They launched this all-in-one home heating and air conditioning system yesterday:

    I guess they are on the right track, but some mis-information in their press release.

    steve
  • Steamhead
    Steamhead Member Posts: 16,796

    Dandelion Energy has been busy. They launched this all-in-one home heating and air conditioning system yesterday:

    I guess they are on the right track, but some mis-information in their press release.
    If not, they'll go the way of the Acadia heat pump.
    All Steamed Up, Inc.
    Towson, MD, USA
    Steam, Vapor & Hot-Water Heating Specialists
    Oil & Gas Burner Service
    Consulting
    Robert O'Brien
  • Jack
    Jack Member Posts: 1,047
    for more geo info check out the Oregon Institute of Technologies, Geo-heat Center in Klamath Falls. Mostly direct geo, but great reading for those interested.
  • leonz
    leonz Member Posts: 1,095
    edited June 2018
    Open loop, semi open loop, closed loop, drilled well geothermal, drilled geothermal well with thermal grouting, snicker!!!!- the grout is thermal clay mix and you should demand that the driller use mason sand instead to surround the drop pipe to depth as the clay holds the heat in the loop rather than let it transfer to the ground surrounding well bore hole.

    Open loop with a continuous water source like a river or year round creek or body of lake water.

    Semi open loop can be very economical and the payback is immediate just like the open loop as it is drilled deep in bed rock that has water in it where the well pump is near the bottom and the return water is dumped back at the top of the well giving you 1 ton of power per hundred foot of actual water depth in the well.
    If you have a well with a full depth of casing and water has good pressure in the casing to find its static water depth that is deep you will need to drill a second well to allow seasonal change over from one well depth to the other to prevent the loss of the well water to a drain.


    If you can find a well driller with a Foremost brand of water well drill to do the work you will both make a lot of money as the Foremost water well drill drills with the well casing to depth along with a rotary drill in the casing as it protects the well bore from collapsing in on itself.

    It all depends on what you have for property as a surface trenched geothermal system will cost less money to install as long as the loop legs are far enough apart and long enough that they will not create issues with the transfer of the heat dumping and the ability of the ground to transfer the ground temperature to the tubing for cooling or heating.

    The radial drilled geothermal loops-small area foot print to install geo loops.

    - visualize a Tee Pee with the poles exposed and below ground.
    These loops are drilled with small HDD tracked drills and use soft copper pipe for the loops with a service box below ground to connect the piping to the home heating and cooling system.


  • hot_rod
    hot_rod Member Posts: 22,018
    They also use horizontal boring rigs to put in loop fields, instead of vertical wells. Less mess and destruction in the yard. Bore out 150', pop up, connect loop, pull back and grout.

    Drill out under your neighbors yard, when he is not looking :)

    A city in Nevada used their ductile iron water main as the loop field, until they pulled so much heat energy it froze. They had to spread the connections farther apart to get more ground contact.

    Air to water is another option that is getting more viable, should be 4 or more brands on the market this year.
    Bob "hot rod" Rohr
    trainer for Caleffi NA
    Living the hydronic dream
  • SuperJ
    SuperJ Member Posts: 609
    GSHP tech is viable. My parents have a 23year old 4ton GSHP that's still going strong, he hasn't used the backup electrical heat ever (kept the breaker off) and keeps the house at 70-72f 24/7. He (my father) compares his power bill with his neighbor's propane and electric bills and is now literally 10's of thousands of dollars ahead of the neighbor who went propane the same year.

    GSHP were cheaper back then (1995-96), I think he paid $11-14k including everything (Heatpump, Loop Pumps, ground loop, even ductwork).

    I have mixed opinions on the government subsidies. I think they keep prices artificially high since they remove the pressure to reduce costs. When the subsidies disappear the market collapses. (That's what happened here in Ontario, Canada). We have some lucrative subsides right now though.

    Another benefit of geothermal is that is really flattens out your demand curve for power. You peak summer amps are half of the guys running conventional split AC units, and your winter demand is fairly constant. This means theoretically the power infrastructure should be cheaper. Since you are amortizing the infrastructure cost into more kw hours, but lower peak kws. But right now I think only Germany gets this and passes the benefit to GSHP in the way of lower power rates.
  • GBart
    GBart Member Posts: 746
    I HATE the term, I was there when it was decided to use the term geo-thermal as a sales gimmic for these units which are nothing more than a glorified Water Source Heat Pump, THEY ARE NOT GEO-THERMAL IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM, they use the upper ground temperature of 55F as a heat source and heat sink.

    They are a more efficient heat pump because of that, just imagine your condenser in a 55F day whether heating or cooling, and that's all they will ever be, consumers have been duped to think they are heating and cooling their homes using geo thermal heat which is volcanic,
    CLamb
  • SuperJ
    SuperJ Member Posts: 609
    edited June 2018
    I respectfully disagree. But I do think ground source heat pump (GSHP) is a better term than geothermal. It makes the technology appear more comparable with air source heat pumps (which in the case of VRF tech) is comparable in some cases.

    The fact is about 2-3, to 3/4 of the energy does in fact come from the ground. Whether it arrived 6 feet below the surface from the sun, or the magma underneath is kind of irrelevant. Most of the heat is apparently from the sun this close to the surface, maybe they should be called solar thermal heat pumps :)
  • Harvey Ramer
    Harvey Ramer Member Posts: 2,239
    > @hot rod said:
    > I never made the time to learn enough about refrigeration technology. Seems it will be a must for the next generation wetheads.

    It will. It is far more cost effective to move heat than create it. Refrigeration is an integral part of our everyday life, in many forms. Any tech coming into the field would do well to learn it.

    I don't think there's anything particularly special about this geothermal unit. It appears their business model is to create a turn-key installation package.
    SuperJRobert O'Brien
  • Jamie Hall
    Jamie Hall Member Posts: 23,159
    In a very real sense @GBart is exactly right. Strictly speaking, "geothermal" should refer only to operations where a higher temperature source within the earth (hot ground water itself or circulating a working fluid -- which may or may not be water -- through hot rock at depth) is used as the heat source. Period.

    However, the media and advertising being what they are...
    Br. Jamie, osb
    Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England
    GBart
  • SuperJ
    SuperJ Member Posts: 609
    True a heat pump is nothing special tech wise. That's kinda what make them great IMHO.
    Residential GSHP typically use the similar scroll compressors as high efficiency air conditioners. They just have extended range txvs (loop temps theoretically could be as extreme as 20F-120F), insulated coax heat exchangers to prevent condensation and allow antifreeze solutions to be pumped without fouling.

    The thing that gets messed up the most is the loop design.
    Need to put enough pipe in the ground and be able to pump it efficiently. And you need to be able flush it properly. Many loops are undersized but over pumped, or have enough pipe in the ground but too much in series, need some parallelism to keep the pressure drop realistic. Need the flow rate to match the heat pumps flow requirements.
  • hot_rod
    hot_rod Member Posts: 22,018
    I suppose you could find various definitions of the term. For the HO or consumer which term is most understandable?

    Would a pump and dump system be considered geothermal or GSHP? Guess it would depend on the temperature of the source well.

    Bob "hot rod" Rohr
    trainer for Caleffi NA
    Living the hydronic dream
  • D107
    D107 Member Posts: 1,849
    Note that Dandelion is also working on a boiler replacement system. It is called Dandelion Radiate and is expected to be available in 18 months. Love to find out more about this if @Erin Holohan Haskell or anyone else has some pull.
  • Jack
    Jack Member Posts: 1,047
    In the late 70's when I was doing "water source" heat pumps from Vanguard we used swimming pools as the heat sink. Now, this was in the Napa Valley, so moderate climate, but they worked well when paired with a covered pool and a glazed solar system to keep the pool temp up. Summer, you rejected heat to the pool and didn't cover. you had heated pools, but chemical consumption rose.
    There were companies that took bare Olin flat plate collectors and would hang them under the porch. Total slight of hand but they qualified for the Solar Tax Credits.
    My interest back in those days was the direct geo and I did a feasibility study with the DOE, overseen by the Geo-Heat Center. Calistoga, where I lived sits on a "pool" of hot water that was mapped by the CA State Geologists. It is high in Boron and Boron kills grapes...so, that project didn't go anywhere, but it still could. There was a Hot Rocks project out in the Reno area that did well for a couple years pumping water into the rocks to extract the heat. The project ultimately failed due to cold capping the bed. Rock has a poor heat transfer co-efficient. Klamath Falls is a really nice place and the home of the Geo-Heat Center. Many people heat their homes and hot water by simply putting a hairpin of pipe down their well. The difference between Calistoga and Klamath Falls is there is a "flow gradient" of the geo water in KF, so it constantly replenished and you do not have to pump the water out. The downtown has a district system and the sidewalks are over the pipe chases for the S&R piping. The heat loss from that acts as the snow melt for the sidewalks. for all you east coasters looking for some nice country to see, that Southern OR area is pretty nice and you can visit the Geo-Heat Center.
  • Erin Holohan Haskell
    Erin Holohan Haskell Member, Moderator, Administrator Posts: 2,276
    David107 said:

    Note that Dandelion is also working on a boiler replacement system. It is called Dandelion Radiate and is expected to be available in 18 months. Love to find out more about this if @Erin Holohan Haskell or anyone else has some pull.

    @David107 Interesting. I haven't heard anything about it.
    President
    HeatingHelp.com
  • leonz
    leonz Member Posts: 1,095
    edited June 2018
    The folks at Water Furnace pioneered the semi open loop method of geothermal heating and cooling.

    They designed at least two geothermal vertical drilled well systems in New York City that drilled into the granite bed rock.
    I do not remember off hand where the buildings are but they were the first two systems installed by this method in New York.

    The Director of the Museum of the Earth in Ithaca, New York had twin geothermal wells drilled and fractured by Mike Frey of Frey Well Drilling out of Buffalo, NY that were drilled through the two upper Sillurian salt salt seams below the museum property to a depth of 1,550 feet through limestone and shale and they are/were pumping salt water through the heat exchangers and have been for close to 15 years. I do not know how often they have to replace the heat exchangers.

    Mr. Frey and I both tried to talk him out of drilling that deep but he insisted that it be drilled to 1,550 feet in depth which is how deep the granite rock wells in Manhattan were drilled .
    I do not know if the system is still operating.

    If you run across a Geothermal installation in a lawn with a pit vault its either a surface dug or drilled system OR a radial down drilled spoke pattern set up done with an HDD drill from one position and with installed soft copper in geothermal clay grout- insert "UGH" here.

    The Magical Geothermal clay grout sold by BAROID and others has clay in it so its better to simply pump mason sand in the bore holes with the piping in a surface long length or vertical drilled set up with multiple wells which is another headache by for the home owner by the way as all it takes is one pin hole or an electroweld failure to drain the entire system of water or antifreeze mix.
    The U pipes used in the twin pipe electrowelded polyethylene fused piping systems in the drilled geothermal grouted wells had a very bad reputation for failing in the bottom of the grouted wells and as a result the the entire well field became suspect as it is difficult to locate the leak and that well would need to be bypassed completely with new excavation to reconnect the piping to bypass the damaged pipe and well.

    In the radial drilled geothermal systems once the copper starts to degrade there is no saving the system and the antifreeze mixture will be lost to the ground and a vertical well will need to be drilled to replace it using a sealed semi open loop well. The drilled and sealed deep well will have enough water to provide enough heat exchange as long as the replacement system is designed correctly.
    =====================================================
    Please note:
    If the well does not have enough water at the static water level
    you still need 100 feet of water depth for each ton of cooling power required in the semi open loop design.
    ====================================================
    The replacement well will need to be drilled deeper and a cement plug installed at the bottom of the full depth well casing for the water capacity needed where in a single deep well submersible pump is installed in the bottom of the drilled well and the return water is simply dumped back into the well with a second sanitary tee above the static water level.
    (the existing pit/vault can still be used for the deep well and to connect the replacement piping to the existing system.

    =====================================================
    A jet pump cannot be used in deep well geothermal system as it would not allow the water to cool gradually and adequately enough as it needs falls by gravity to the bottom of the drilled well slowly releasing the heat back into the water that is 52 degrees Fahrenheit in temperature or less at the base of the drilled well.

    =====================================================
    Disclaimer:
    I am a NYSDEC certified well driller and pump installer but I am not registered.
    D107
  • D107
    D107 Member Posts: 1,849
    I got some feedback from some energy people on this FWIW:

    Note that the blurb does not say "seasonal" COP or SEER. Any ground-source heat pump should have a COP of 3.5 or better when heating through forced air in a home. I look forward to seeing actual measured (not claimed) results, with the furnace's fan energy included.

    I queried two NYSERDA heat pump proponents regarding a guarantee that the Dandelion system will actually cost less to operate, for a full year, than an oil-fired system. Both declined.

    Keep in mind that, regardless of efficiency, it is OPERATING COST that makes a sale. Where electricity is cheap enough, a ground-source heat pump may be a great idea. But we are talking Con Ed electric rates around here. Without some sort of guarantee that the Dandelion system will save money at Con Ed rates.....

  • leonz
    leonz Member Posts: 1,095
    A water furnace unit may be the way to go with this as they have been a proven system for many years.


    D107
  • D107
    D107 Member Posts: 1,849
    edited June 2018
    I checked out the Blog on the dandelion energy website; some interesting info. Also some specs from their FAQ section: https://dandelionenergy.com/wp-content/themes/dandelion_v3/images/Dandelion-Spec-Sheet.pdf
    GCR
  • GBart
    GBart Member Posts: 746
    You're not geo thermal in any sense of the definition, you are using the 55 degree ground( average) as a heat sink and source, basically it's a closed loop earth heat exchanger, one site discusses ground temperature -- soil depths greater than 30 feet below the surface, the soil temperature is relatively constant, and corresponds roughly to the water temperature measured in groundwater wells 30 to 50 feet deep. This is referred to as the “mean earth temperature.” In Virginia, the mean earth temperature ranges from 52ºF in the northern Shenandoah Valley and Winchester area to 62ºF in coastal Tidewater.

    That temperature is based on ground water temp which is usually somewhat controlled by volcanic heat but that's as close as these systems actually come to being geo thermal.

    You can also be open or closed loop but I think most open loops are not allowed, you could for example be a closed loop pond heat exchanger, etc.
  • SuperJ
    SuperJ Member Posts: 609
    David107 said:

    I got some feedback from some energy people on this FWIW:

    Note that the blurb does not say "seasonal" COP or SEER. Any ground-source heat pump should have a COP of 3.5 or better when heating through forced air in a home. I look forward to seeing actual measured (not claimed) results, with the furnace's fan energy included.

    I queried two NYSERDA heat pump proponents regarding a guarantee that the Dandelion system will actually cost less to operate, for a full year, than an oil-fired system. Both declined.

    Keep in mind that, regardless of efficiency, it is OPERATING COST that makes a sale. Where electricity is cheap enough, a ground-source heat pump may be a great idea. But we are talking Con Ed electric rates around here. Without some sort of guarantee that the Dandelion system will save money at Con Ed rates.....

    Anything that is AHRI rated should include fan and pump energy.
    The testing is standardized. This isn't the wild west that a lot of people think GSHP are. I don't think you can get a guarantee anymore than you can guarantee a percent savings if you switch a customer to a modcon.

    http://www.ahrinet.org/App_Content/ahri/files/standards pdfs/AHRI standards pdfs/AHRI Standard 330-1998.pdf There may be a newer test standard now.
    D107
  • GBart
    GBart Member Posts: 746
    Your GSHP cost to run will be based on the cost of electricity in your area as well.

    It's the most efficient heat pump is all it is because the "outdoor coil" is not exposed to temperature extremes when it is trying to heat or cool. It keeps the compression ratio down when cooling and that lowers amp draw and provides and excellent heat source when heating and that cuts run time.