I'm familiar with Eavor, but it definitely has it's challenges. There are a lot of experimental ideas, and maybe one of them works well. I'm just saying we don't have easy geothermal that we can plug into to generate electricity, which is the impression people seem to have around it. We aren't all Iceland. I think their is potential in district energy solutions for heating and cooling though. Just not so much indivdual homes, not at a reasonable price, anyway.
Loop systems are still expensive. The price of the heat pump compressors have gone up 50% + the last couple years.
Here in Manitoba it costs $5000 per ton of heating & cooling capacity to do an open loop water to air geothermal. That is installed.
I'd imagine it would cost 30% more to do closed loop water to air.
However it is extremely cost effective long term with energy savings.
Over 20 years, for a 90 ton system (what we are installing), we will save almost $2 million in heating & cooling costs compared to propane. Almost $5k to $8k per month. This is with current propane prices.
Other options for heating would be natural gas or electric heat.
Other cooling options would be air to air heat pumps, propane, natural gas.
Natural gas we'd have to bring in a line ($500k cost), but if the line existed and we could just hookup, we calculated water to water geothermal to save $500k to $750k over 20 years with the current price of natural gas.
For electric we'd save $250k to $300k over 20 years with water to water geothermal compared to electric heat. Still have to do a cooling source.
So yes, it is effective, but expensive up front. Payback is better if you have a bigger facility.
We have a big water source so we can do heating & cooling. If you have no water source to do heating, not sure what else you could do in the winter outside of electric, natural gas or propane. Air to air heat pumps for heating are not effective in -30 C.
Last edited by Azure; 06-24-2022 at 01:04 PM.
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Have a look, this guy installed his own system and it didn't cost him that much. Those who have some know-how can save a lot of money.
So he recommends at least an acre for a closed loop system, and the drawbacks of an open loop make it not usable in Calgary, anyway.
"Each tonne of cooling/heating power I have requires 600 ft of pipe." So that's 7 120 foot trenches for his place. So sure, if you have an acreage, this might be a solution. You also need to be bellow the frost line, and deeper to have much heating return.
He said it would cost 30-40K installed, he did it for $17k USD, but his own labour, and he had an excavator.
So he recommends at least an acre for a closed loop system, and the drawbacks of an open loop make it not usable in Calgary, anyway.
"Each tonne of cooling/heating power I have requires 600 ft of pipe." So that's 7 120 foot trenches for his place. So sure, if you have an acreage, this might be a solution. You also need to be bellow the frost line, and deeper to have much heating return.
He said it would cost 30-40K installed, he did it for $17k USD, but his own labour, and he had an excavator.
This sounds like a pretty niche solution.
Also really depends on the type of ground you have. I know guys who have run into repeated drilling issues trying to do loops.
It gets expensive.
Rough estimates to hire someone to do drilling for 7 120 foot trenches would be around $50k I would say. $5k per loop.
A lot more if you have a ground type where it is hard to drill properly.
It's cost prohibitive for a lot of people. Absolutely.
But there's really no reason why each province can't have a rebate or tax credit program like they have in Manitoba. And there's really no reason why all large buildings shouldn't have a geoexchange system put in.
We need more development in this field to get the heat pumps where they are 100% effective in -40 C, and then you have basically solved the heating problem. Run a sizable federal rebate for all heat pump installations for new builds or retrofits, and people will go this route. The carbon tax pushes people in this direction (big influence on our decision), but a rebate to help pay for some upfront costs would help a LOT.
For a water to air system, if you are lucky enough to live in an area where there is good well water supply to install it, and you need more than 10 tons, the government should help way more. The savings are massive for 25 years, which tends to be the lifespan of the unit.
The COP of heat pumps at -30º isn't particularly great anyway, so you don't even necessarily need new technology, you just need to install inexpensive electric heat strips for when it's incapable of keeping up. In places with low emission electricity generation, that will still offer significant environmental benefits vs. gas.
Also, the good ones can modulate, so you can oversize them without any real penalty for efficiency. So if your heat loss at -25º is 35K BTUs and your heat pump can put out 80% of its capacity at -25º, then you could just get a 48K BTU unit. It will be oversized 90% of the time, but it can reduce its output when it's warmer out and still run efficiently. And the capital costs of upsizing aren't much at all; I know when I was looking at them, going from 2 tons to 3 tons was only about $1K more.
I do think people underestimate heat pumps' ability to perform in cold temperatures. The Fujitsu heat pumps I have in my house aren't even designed for super cold weather, but they can put out 100% of their rated capacity at -21º at a COP of 2.15.
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Heat pumps don't make much sense in Alberta for heating, at least in terms of the environment given how electricity is generated. Turning gas into electricity and then into heat is less efficient than just turning gas into heat, even with a heat pump. On the other hand, sometimes a small heat pump doesn't cost any more than something with just A/C, so it might be useful for supplemental heat.
Really though, another thing that needs to be addressed is the insane cost of installing some heat pumps in Canada. I was extremely lucky that I have a good friend who's an HVAC/R Tech so I was able to get the equipment at his cost and then he and I did the installation in a half a day (excluding the ducting, which I did myself later on) for under $6K. But if I had hired a company to do it, it probably would have been about $15-20K (not including ducting).
In the US, you can at least order the equipment online (for about the same at-cost price I got in Canada) and then hire someone just for the install. But in Canada you're stuck paying a huge markup and then paying a fortune for the install.
There's a reason why they're used for heating and cooling in tons of lower income countries and that's because they're supposed to be relatively cheap to buy and install. You can buy decent mini splits (Carrier or LG) off the shelf from Costco or Walmart in Mexico for $6-800, but even the cheapo Senville units in Canada are about twice that.
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Major breakthrough in perovskite solar technology.
Quote:
4:31
But now a team at Princeton University reckon they produced a device that's not only highly durable, but that hits the industry standard for conversion efficiency as well.
I think the answer is that rich nations immediately need to changeover to nuclear power. This is technology that exists now. What's the saying? The best time to plant a tree was 30 years ago, the 2nd best time is now. Build the reactors NOW.
Once we are on that source, we begin to explore the feasibility of green sources like solar and wind on a mass scale, as well as alternate sources like geothermal and fusion. We have to get away from oil and gas as fuel ASAP.
That is, of course, if we are serious about combating climate change. I have my doubts.
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The geothermal system we will be putting in for our new facility to do heating & cooling will have a COP of 3.75 - 4. The Manitoba Hydro numbers on space heating were based on a the COP of 2.5 for water source heat pumps. With what we are seeing on the units we ordered, I'd imagine we have a payback on the entire system in less than 4 years WITHOUT government subsidies. With government subsidies it will be 2 years, maybe 3.
Thanks for sharing that. I have seen reports of BC looking into using excess Hydro energy and sending that to electrolyzers converting water into Hydrogen and Oxygen, and then storing that hydrogen for hydrogen fuel cells / pumping it into natural gas lines.
Thanks for sharing that. I have seen reports of BC looking into using excess Hydro energy and sending that to electrolyzers converting water into Hydrogen and Oxygen, and then storing that hydrogen for hydrogen fuel cells / pumping it into natural gas lines.
More info and a good Youtube video explaining the process:
Thanks for sharing that. I have seen reports of BC looking into using excess Hydro energy and sending that to electrolyzers converting water into Hydrogen and Oxygen, and then storing that hydrogen for hydrogen fuel cells / pumping it into natural gas lines.
There is no reason we couldn't have done something similar under the REP, using excess wind.
Huge missed opportunity by the NDP IMO.
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