Geothermal Optimization
- This advanced design software optimizes ground-loop lengths to slash installation costs while perfectly matching geothermal heat pump sizes to your building's specific zone loads.
- Optimizing ground heat exchanger (GHX) length through specialized design and comparison software drastically reduces upfront capital costs while precisely matching heat pump capacity to building thermal zones.
- Geothermal Design Optimization: Leverage comparative software to minimize ground heat exchanger length, reduce installation costs, and perfectly match zone-level heat pump capacity to building loads.
Optimizing the length of your in-ground heat exchanger is the single most critical factor in Geothermal Heat Pump (GHP) economics. While conventional air-source HVAC systems traditionally offer lower upfront costs, GEO®Hourly bridges the gap—allowing you to leverage the superior efficiency of a closed-loop geothermal system without the prohibitive installation premium.
- Accelerated Payback: The ground loop represents the largest variable expense of a geothermal installation; optimizing its length directly slashes your upfront capital expenditure.
- Precision Zoning: Instead of oversized, inefficient equipment, our models accurately match your heat pump capacity to the exact thermal demands of each building zone.
- Data-Driven Confidence: Move past rule-of-thumb guesswork with precise, hourly simulations that protect performance while protecting your budget.
Our platform provides the advanced optimization tools and comparative analytics you need to safely downsize underground loops, reduce drilling or trenching costs, and maximize your return on investment.
Auxiliary electric heat strips are located inside a Geothermal Heat Pump (Ground Source Heat Pump) unit to provide supplemental warmth when the system reaches its maximum heating capacity.
Because extreme peak heating demands occur for only a few hours each year, installing an oversized geothermal unit is inefficient and costly. Instead, it is much more economical to rely on electric resistance heat strips for these brief periods, which typically total around 30 hours per year.
Many manufacturers classify this auxiliary heat as a "third stage" of heating. When this stage is triggered, GEO®Hourly simulates auxiliary electric heat across every active zone to accurately project and calculate the system's overall operating costs.
Every simulation generates multiple design variations for deep analysis and comparison. GEO®Hourly automatically calculates the operational costs and economic payback for each configuration. While installing excess length in an in-ground heat exchanger adds a design contingency, it also carries financial consequences. GEO®Hourly clearly maps out this excess length alongside its simple payback period in years. Because the financial return on over-designing is rarely obvious, the software allows you to adjust key parameters with simple clicks—delivering an optimized, cost-effective design with speed and accuracy.
Hybrid designs are highly effective when there is a significant imbalance between your peak cooling and peak heating BTU loads. By substituting a hybrid design to cover this capacity gap, you can perfectly balance the ground heat exchanger load and shift the excess demand to the hybrid equipment.
If this extra ground-loop capacity is only required for a few hours out of the year, the minor operating costs of a hybrid system are often far less expensive than paying to install and amortize an oversized in-ground heat exchanger.
To optimize this balance, GEO®Hourly precisely sizes the hybrid equipment's BTU load and establishes its ideal operational parameters. You can further enhance your system's economics by shifting the hybrid equipment's runtime to nighttime or alternative seasons—allowing you to take advantage of lower off-peak utility rates and more favorable wet-bulb temperatures.