Geothermal Workshop teaches nuts and bolts
Do you want to lower your monthly electric bills?
Tim Gerhart, a Capital Electric member who lives in north Bismarck, says the thing he likes best about his ground-source heat pump is the lower electric bills.
Would you like to increase your furnace efficiency from 85 percent … to 300 or 400 hundred percent? Do you prefer a constant temperature rather than forced air?
If you plan to build a new home or business, or retrofit an existing space in the co-op’s service area, Member Services Assistant Josh Schaffner advises the installation of a geothermal system for maximum efficiency and comfort.
Josh has worked with hundreds of cooperative members across the state to provide guidance on ground-source heat pumps. They call him because he works directly with an ECONAR® representative to analyze building plans and work with contractors to provide system sales, installation and service.
Because he has received so many calls from members across the state, Josh organized a geothermal workshop held Oct. 2-4 in Bismarck at Basin Electric Power Cooperative. His goal was to help educate employees from other cooperatives, and the contractors who work with those co-ops, so they could provide service locally.
“If contractors don’t have the in-depth knowledge to advise a consumer on geothermal, the consumer will likely have to hire a contractor from out of town. This can be expensive,” Josh says.
“Geothermal systems are an investment, and it is critical that consumers hire a qualified contractor who will help them get the most out of their investment. That’s why this geothermal training will go a long way in helping our member-consumers. The people who attended should now be able to work with drillers, plumbers, and heating and air conditioning reps to install a geothermal system from start to finish.”
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Allen Kersten (front), member services technician with Verendrye Electric Cooperative, practices heat-fusing a pipe used for either horizontal ground loops or vertical wells. Dwite Brew, technical staff assistant with McKenzie Electric Cooperative, watches to see if Allen can properly fuse a joint. |
Jon Olds, regional GeoRep for ECONAR, says electric cooperatives and geothermal systems work well together because of stable electric heat rates.
“Generally, a co-op will have lower demand in the wintertime and higher demand in the summertime because of air conditioning. This makes a peak in the summer and a valley in the winter,” Jon says.
“A heat pump will allow the peak demand to be leveled out throughout the year. It brings the demand up in the wintertime because consumers use more electricity to operate the heat pump. But in the summer, the peak drops because the pump works at a more constant rate.”
This level is good not only for distribution cooperatives like Capital Electric, but for generation and transmission cooperatives like Basin Electric.
“With geothermal systems, the high efficiency keeps your electric usage down, resulting in lower demand on the cooperative during summer peak periods. In the winter, when utility companies are not operating the power plants at their peak performance, geothermal heating continues to keep you and the cooperative well below the demand point. Overall, your demand throughout the year stays low and fairly constant so you don’t have the peaks and valleys,” Jon says.
For more information on geothermal systems, visit www.capitalelec.com and click on “Energy Efficiency” and then “Geothermal Heat Pumps.” To have Josh or Doug with Capital Electric’s member services department look at your building plans and provide guidance on electric heat products, call (701) 223-1513 today.