September 25
Let's Talk program: Thermal Network Successes and NREL Insights with John Ciovacco, NY-GEO Board Member (Aztech Geothermal)
John Ciovacco – NY-GEO Board Member and President of Aztech Geothermal has just returned from a trip out West to a NREL workshop, plus tours of sewer waste heat recovery, and thermal energy network (TEN) systems. The catalyst for the trip was that DOE’s National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) invited approximately 25 outside experts and key stakeholders to address DOE staff on Decarbonizing Communities with District Geothermal in Golden Colorado. To leverage the long trip, John arranged tours with people linked to some key clean thermal energy projects out West, with emphasis on large and community-scale systems.
John provided an overview of the NREL workshop and will run through photos and narrate the many terrific tours:
- National Western Center Sewer Waste Heat Recovery Denver, CO [Thanks Micheal Albertson!]
- Colorado Mesa University Grand Junction, CO [Thanks Cary Smith!]
- Alexandra District Energy Utility Richmond, BC [Thanks Constantino Retes!]
- SHARC Factory and Four Site Visits Vancouver Area, BC [Thanks Lynn and Dani Mueller!]
August 11
Let's Talk program featuring NY-GEO board members Heather Deese (Dandelion) and Jens Ponikau (Buffalo Geothermal).
Heather discusses third party ownership/leasing options for geothermal heat pump systems which will scale deployment of the most climate friendly, lowest operating cost heating and cooling technology 40% faster, creating 90,000 good-paying jobs and avoiding 64 million metric tons of missions. Geothermal installers across the country are in discussions with capital markets to finance third party ownership, but lack of clarity from the IRS is holding up projects right now. Right now, we are engaged in a major push to get this issue on the priority list for the IRS to address in 2023 and engagement from more of the NY-GEO membership would be a huge help!
Jens will be sharing further performance data from a presentation to the PSC, about how the thermal ground battery of a geo system actually acts like a dispatchable energy resource, avoiding peak grid capacity, and the need for electric grid peaker plants.
Jens also reviews how electric grid capacity, including DHW and heating load, is still less than today's summer A/C driven peak load. When a energy efficient home is combined with a modern geo system, an increase of electric grid capacity for heating is eliminated.