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Walmart stores recently built their first new store built with 100% LED lighting in South Euclid, OH. In addition to the LED lighting, lighting controls use sensors to take greater advantage of daylighting in the store and daylight harvesting to reduce energy use for lighting by a further 25%. In addition to the lighting changes, the store boasts a white membrane roof to reduce solar heat absorption. These measures, combined with efficient air conditioning systems make it one of their most efficient stores. These measures help make the integration of a GCHP system even easier. The Certified GeoExchange Designer (CGD) Plus course material offered by IGSHPA and accredited by the Association of Energy Engineers (AEE) has been available in Imperial units for several years. With IGSHPA Chapters outside of the U.S. there is a demand for the course material to be delivered using metric units. The first metric version of the course has been delivered (online) to several participants in the United Kingdom. Jamie Clark has written an interesting blog article about the use of GCHP systems in net-zero homes. Click on the link to read the article about the Climate Master Trilogy heat pump that provides space heating / cooling and domestic hot water on demand. I lived with a prototype WaterFurnace heat pump between 1993 and 2012 that provided the same thing, but unfortunately, was never released for sale.
GCHP systems are almost always though of as a space heating and cooling technology. As an afterthought they are sometimes considered for water heating domestic hot water. They can do so much more! Heat pumps simply cool and warm air and/or water. What you do with it is limited only by your imagination. Heat pumps and GHX's have been used to... The best system diagnostic tool you can have as a GCHP system designer, a service technician, a building manager or owner, is an ongoing record of the fluid temperature leaving the GHX and entering the heat pump. This can tell you if the system is operating as it should or not. What does this mean for the different stakeholders of a system? The geothermal industry has not been very good at promoting the industry...certainly they haven't done as well as the solar PV or wind industries. Large investment funds have invested millions of dollars to build wind farms and solar PV farms. The only way many of these investments can actually provide a decent return on the investment is because of subsidies and incentives from the government. There are a couple of problems the geothermal heat pump industry has: One of the mandates IGSHPA has is training and education for people interested in working in the GCHP industry. Four courses were offered at the conference in the days leading to the conference, including the Accredited Installer Workshop, Accredited Drillers Workshop, Building Load Analysis and Pumping Workshop and the Certified GeoExchange Designer (CGD) course. Fifteen people participated in the course, including people from... I can't remember leaving the IGSHPA Conference without finding at least a few things that made the time and trip worthwhile. One of the things I saw on this trip was a new product that looks like it can make HDPE pipe connections quicker and easier. Watts Water Technologies had the new product on display in their booth. I spoke with Keith Whitworth and Steve Barrett in their booth who described the new HDPE pipe joining method. Much of my career in the geothermal industry has been based in North America. The principles the geothermal industry works on in North America is the same as industry in Europe, Austral-Asia, South America and the rest of the world works on...but quite a few of the little details about how systems are deployed are different in the different regions. One of the biggest differences is...    The International Ground Source Heat Pump Association (IGSHPA) was founded in 1987...over a quarter century ago. Some things happening at the conference this year include:
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Ed Lohrenz
In my blog I'll be expressing my opinions about what I've the learned about ground coupled heat pump (GCHP) systems over the last 30 years. I've been very fortunate to work with many interesting people who are passionate about this technology...engineers, geologists, mechanical contractors, drillers, excavation contractors...in different parts of the world. I've learned a lot from them and will be using this forum to pass on some of the things I've learned and feel are important. Please feel free to use this information if you feel it's worthwhile...hopefully you can avoid some of the same mistakes I've learned from. Archives
November 2016
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