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Businesses of all kinds are discovering how to save tens of thousands of dollars each year on their heating and air conditioning bills with geoexchange. Whether it is offices, recreational facilities, schools, grocery stores, hotels, or other commercial buildings, building owners and occupants are experiencing the benefits of geoexchange, including operating cost savings, greater comfort, lower greenhouse gas emissions, lower maintenance and equipment life cycle costs, and individual zone control. Geoexchange is an excellent option for the majority of buildings, whether building new or retrofitting an existing building
Building owners are increasingly realizing the benefits of using geoexchange to heat and cool their buildings – money saved, comfortable tenants, a better environment. So while geoexchange costs more up front, the long term benefits are leading more and more building owners to have geoexchange lead their suite of energy efficiency technology upgrades:
- Significantly lower operating costs, meaning better value for tenants and higher lease rates for owners
- Lower carbon footprint, which helps companies to become much more sustainable with just one technology
- Better indoor air quality, and therefore improved employee comfort
- Lower maintenance costs than conventional systems
- Incentives exist in many municipalities
Geoexchange systems are ideal for multi-family residential buildings. The same characteristics that make geoexchange a premium system in single family homes apply to multi-family buildings as well: better humidity control, no temperature fluctuations, cost savings, a healthy indoor environment, and no burning of fossil fuels in the building. These all combine to create an exceptionally comfortable living environment.
Geoexchange systems can be designed with all the flexibility of a conventional system, and can readily be designed to give temperature control for each individual unit. The design can also give the ability to move energy around the building to where it is needed. For example, those in the south facing units who use cooling more in the summer months, the heat created to cool those units can be used to provide heating to those north facing units. Transferring energy within the building is an efficient means of heating and cooling multi-family residential buildings without burning more fossil fuels. It also enables a smaller, more efficient and less costly ground loop, improving the system’s economics.
Some common benefits of using geoexchange in multi-family residential buildings:
- Can increase the amount of usable floor space
- Ease of maintenance
- Simultaneous heating and cooling, keeping all parts of the building comfortable at all times
- Domestic hot water pre-heat
- Better humidity control
- Higher air circulation means a more comfortable building
Have you ever wandered the aisles of your local grocery stores and wondered just how much energy they use to keep the food cold, and the building itself warm, even in the dead of winter?
Conventional refrigeration systems are energy intensive, and typically the grocery stores simply dump the waste heat from the refrigeration units, rather than moving it to an area in the facility where it can be put to better, more efficient use. Because of this, the energy consumed by grocery stores is high, and the economics of replacing conventional systems with heat pumps are attractive. Refrigeration consumes over 50% of the average grocery store’s energy budget, and heating consumes close to 20%. Significant cost savings can be achieved by using the heat generated by the refrigeration units’ compressors to heat the remainder of the building and provide hot water. With this method the heat is not lost, but is put to good use and can greatly reduce the amount of fossil fuel required for heating
Remember what it was like sweltering in a classroom in June in a school without air conditioning? With geoexchange this could be a thing of the past – it provides heating AND air conditioning, all with the same equipment. And among the other benefits are:
- Significantly lower operating costs, freeing up budget for other necessities
- Much smaller environmental impact and carbon footprint
- Opportunities for students to learn about renewable energy, new technology, and how they can do their part for the environment
- Better air Quality by design
- A simple system – less maintenance, no specialists required
- Government energy efficiency incentives
Geoexchange is an excellent option for new-build schools, and can very often be used effectively to retrofit schools that use old boilers or forced air systems. Our engineers and installers have the skills, expertise and experience to design, engineer and install highly energy efficient HVAC systems for schools that solve the unique issues of each one. Our team can work with school boards to resolve legacy issues such as poor ventilation and electrical inefficiencies. We also have design experience with limiting intrusion to existing structures, which can reduce retrofit costs. Having worked with School Boards in the past, we understand their unique requirements and can ensure that students and staff have a safe and healthy learning environment possible
Hotels use a lot of energy to ensure their customers are comfortable. No expense is spared from washing linens and towels daily, to each room having its own thermostat and hot water source to ensure the guests are always happy.
What if there was a way hotels could reduce their operating costs and not only ensure their guests current level of comfort but actually increase it, all well operating sustainably? There is a way.
Geoexchange systems can provide the heating, cooling and domestic hot water needs for the hotel and even heat the pool and hot tub by harnessing energy from the earth - all for a fraction of the cost of traditional heating and cooling methods. On top of that, geoexchange results in a more even and steady delivery of temperature and due to the whisper quiet heat pumps, you will never hear the system turn on or off. Talk about making your guests comfortable.
Let us show you.
Recreational facilities are ripe with opportunity for energy efficiency improvements; in particular geoexchange. In arenas, heat removed from the ice during the ice making process is often simply exhausted to the outside – with geoexchange that heat wouldn’t go to waste. It would be re-used to heat other areas in the building.
In recreational facilities with swimming pools, this waste heat can be used to heat the water. Geoexchange converts waste heat into a valuable resource by transferring the energy to areas where it is needed.
Ask us about your particular needs, for new buildings, either contact us about designing and installing a GeoThermal system for your new building, or have your preferred HVAC supplier contact us about getting your system designed.
If you have an existing building, bring in one of our experts and we will assess how GeoThermal can be used to save you money on your energy costs.
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