Cool technology

Citation

(2004), "Cool technology", International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Vol. 53 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijppm.2004.07953baf.001

Cool technology

California is leading in the implementation of a new form of heating and cooling known as geoexchange. This is partly due to geography and geology, but mainly due to political will. Geoexchange is an advanced heating and cooling technology claimed to that reduce electricity demand, lower utility bills, increase efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions as compared to conventional heating and cooling systems.

The way it works is simple. In winter, warmth is drawn from the earth through a series of pipes, called a loop, installed beneath the ground. A water solution circulating through this piping loop carries the earth’s natural warmth to a heat pump inside a building. The heat pump concentrates the earth’s thermal energy and transfers it to air circulated through interior ductwork to reach every space in a school or office building. In the summer, the process is reversed; heat is extracted from air inside the building and transferred to the biggest “heat sink” of all the Earth.

Heating and cooling typically accounts for more than 30 per cent of a building’s energy costs. For that reason, technologies that reduce heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) energy consumption can provide substantial savings.

Because geoexchange is highly efficient, it helps reduce peak demand significantly. In fact, each ton of standard air conditioning that is replaced by geoexchange reduces peak electrical demand by nearly 1 kilowatt (kW). An average American home uses about 2.5 - 5 tons of air conditioning, 2.0 to 6.0 kW per house.

Because they tap the Earth’s renewable energy, geoexchange systems are more efficient than oil- or gas-fired boiler/chiller systems, furnaces or conventional heat pumps. They don’t burn fossil fuels, nor do they try to extract heat from cold winter air or reject heat to hot summer air. They simply move heat from the earth to a building’s interior in winter, and pump heat from the interior to the earth in summer. They cost less to operate – much less. Building owners with geoexchange units typically realise energy savings of 25 to 50 per cent over conventional systems.

More information about geoexchange technology is available from the Geothermal Heat Pump Consortium (GHPC), a non-profit organisation that promotes the use of geoexchange technology. GHPC is a resource for anyone wishing to know more about geoexchange and can provide technical expertise, marketing research data and insight, and current industry activity status. GHPC can be reached at www.geoexchange.org.