Ground Source (geothermal) heat pumps are not new, but Dandelion is doing interesting/innovative things. Here is my understanding from keeping track of what they're up to for a little while.
First they've developed a new drilling rig to try and drop the drilling time, cost and mess by 10x. Call the drilling traditionally 50% of the cost. This is for doing vertical bore holes, instead of horizontal trenches.
Second, they're targeting/marketing directly to home owners in cold regions who use heating oil for heating. The data collection/marketing is ground breaking for residential HVAC, but I would guess probably nothing too amazing compared to any modern web company.
Third, they're bringing modern financing to the ground source heat pump space. Similar to solar leases/PPA's is my understanding.
Thanks for pointing out how this is different. On the surface it just seemed like yet another tech company reinventing the wheel and calling it a "smart" product.
Unfortunately, it's still not all that different from traditional geothermal with a "Google" sticker on it for me to really consider it innovative.
The problem is its initial target market: The Hudson Valley. Since Dandelion is based in NYC, it makes sense. But it will only really benefit on the heating side. I've owned several homes in the Hudson Valley (Middletown, Saugerties, Goshen) and yes they used heating oil in the winter, but no -- none of them had air conditioning. Unless something has changed in the last 10 years, residential AC isn't exactly widespread in homes over 10 years old, and (last I was there) electric was displacing heating oil in new construction.
>The data collection/marketing is ground breaking for residential HVAC, but I would guess probably nothing too amazing compared to any modern web company.
Is there some way to see what data they collect/ provide? My client has been providing insight into geothermal installs for 4-5 years now: http://groundenergysupport.com/wp/ -- still the most fulfilling thing I ever built.
My understanding of their data innovation is on the marketing side. What I heard is they're narrowing their marketing to only homes on heating oil or propane, essentially not going after houses on the natural gas infrastructure. The gas distribution data at the residence level is not super public.
I moved into a new apartment last year, served by a district energy utility. My winter electric heating bill went from $180/month to $40/month.
And now I get AC too. At a similar cost.
Now, the new apartment has half the window area and is a bit closer to the ground. But still that is a huge saving.
The utility's infrastructure serves about 25 blocks in a rapidly developing area. They use the "geothermal" constant ground temperature and natural gas heating.
Current estimate of costs in Finland A) electric heating, B) air-pump 2) geothermal
New house, floor heating, 150 m2, 4 persons.
A B C
price installed € 3500 10500 13500
kWh/year ....... 16000 8000 4000
COP-estimate .... 1,0 2,0 4,0
cost per year € 2080 1040 520
saving per year € - 1040 1560
payback difference - 7 y 6 y
saving and cost compared to option A, price of electricity 0.13€/kWh
There doesn't appear to be anything new about this, ground-source heat pumps have been available for domestic use for quite some time.
And going by the name, and looks, it's actually an air-source heat-pump, but I could be wrong.
I'm curious how much this affects the price. I'm not a homeowner any more, but when I was, I longed to replace my furnace with a ground-source heat pump. It is not too much of an efficiency win over gas for heating, especially since we used little heat, but it's great for cooling. But I was really put off by the price. There was no way to justify it even under the most pessimistic assumptions about energy prices, except perhaps if my furnace and AC were to break at the same time.
I think cost is the biggest issue. If you want to reduce heating and cooling costs via investments then insulation + solar can cheaply make a huge difference.
Ground source scales well if you have a large building and a large body of water near by then the payback time is short. But at single family home level it's just not that useful.
> Ground source scales well if you have a large building and a large body of water near by then the payback time is short. But at single family home level it's just not that useful.
There is a way: open-loop systems.
A few years ago we installed an open-loop ground source heat pump (ClimateMaster brand) for under $6k. Water at 50F is drawn from a preexisting 15 gpm/50 foot well, through the heat pump unit, then dumped in a dry well at around 40F. It uses half a million gallons of water a year (costing <$30 in electricity), but of course there's no aquifer depletion, and closed-loop systems also use energy to pump water. This unit also pre-warms hot water at its coefficient of performance (about "600%"), reducing electric DHW costs.
We homeowner installed, so we weren't eligible for NYS incentives. But it cut our annual bill in half vs. the previous heating oil furnace, with a payback period of 5-8 years.
The comparison for NYC is a solar hot water heater system which provides ~100f hot water and cost around 3k. You don't directly save on cooling costs, but as heating costs dominate and you get much warmer hot water that's worth it.
Relative net savings depend on getting a system sized for your use, and how much cooling you use in the summer. But, you can also add solar panels for summer use with the overall value balancing over the year.
That's not what my analysis showed. It has a payback period of 5-10 years depending on your assumptions, assuming new construction. Shorter period the more extreme the climate, longer in places like Norcal. Retrofitting though is a different story (higher cost -> longer payback).
If your further north compare it to solar hot water heater systems which cost ~3.5k self installed about double for someone else to add it to new construction.
Further south solar systems have below your 5-10 year payback period.
Drilling is about half the cost.
It's fairly cost efficient if they do it when building the house, much less so otherwise.
It's basically "free" if your house needs a well anyway.
(this assumes a lot about the ground under your house but it's relatively true ;P)
If you live in a mild climate, you are just not going see a lot of payback because as you said, you don't spend a lot.
Note: Most of them also provide hot water, not just heating and cooling
But all told, the path to making it popular would be to make it part of new construction. I understand why they want to try to make retrofitting cheap, but it's just not even close right now.
Well, that is what they say (without telling anything about the actual drilling method).
A typical water well drilling machine is on the back of a large truck and will bore a 30-40 cm hole for (prices here in Europe) 80-90 €/m.
There are smaller drill rigs (nothing that actually needs to be invented, only "normal" micropiling rigs) that can bore 10-20 cm diameter holes for a price of 60-70 Euro/m.
Let's say you need two holes 80 m deep, at 20 €/m difference (80-60=20 or 90-70=20):
28020=3,200
which represents roughly 10% of the actual price for the dandelion system (the real, not subsidized price) of 35,500 US$.
A typical small micropiling rig has a boring rate of around 100 or maybe 120 m per day so either they are really using a new, ultrafast technology (which I personally doubt) or are using less deep bores, and in any case the depth depends on the geology of the site, so everything is probably "averaged".
A geotermic pump with inverter with 20-30 kW of heating/refrigerating power should be around 15,000-18,000 € so, without more data 30,000 € or 35,000 US$ don't seem such a breakthrough (most probably they have huge savings due to the "massive" scale of operation, instead).
Replying to myself, to add some actual data for the drilling rig from another source:
>Second, it has developed its own drilling rig–smaller and more nimble than traditional geothermal rigs. The custom-built machine is 19 feet long, 8 feet wide, and 8 feet tall, and weighs about 23,000 pounds compared to more than 70,000 pounds for a standard drilling rig. That means it can get closer to the house, and it won’t damage the grass so much, Hannun says.
Third, it drills a smaller hole–4.5 inches wide instead of a standard 6 inches. That means less dirt and rock coming out and less grout with which to fill the gap between the pipe and the ground. A six-inch hole produces 662 gallons of “spoils” and uses 561 gallons of grout to fill, Hannun says. A 4.5-inch one produces only 372 gallons of spoils and 271 gallons of grout–a 50% materials and spoils reduction. At the same time, Dandelion’s rig collects all the waste, so it’s not spread across the yard, Hannun says.
It depends on the geology underneath (I have no idea what is under the area they are currently covering) the amount of heat exchange can vary a lot, even within the same type of soil/rock.
As well the diameter of the bored hole implies a given diameter of the inner pipes, and they have obviously different thermal exchange capacity, though you can use smaller pipes using higher pressure in them.
Here there are some "generic" references (it is the site of an Italian firm that builds geothermal inverters, their English could be bettered):
If geothermal has indeed been available for quite some time and the finances work out for the US consumer, BUT there has been no significant US consumer adoption, shouldn't we be applauding Dandelion and Google for using the Google brand awareness to drive awareness around and shining the light on this proven, environmentally and economically sustainable technology?
Even better if the existing geothermal and utility incumbents rise to the challenge and out-market and out-engineering naive Google to drive even greater adoption of sustainable tech!
:applause Seriously, it's a great idea and a shame it hasn't been adopted more widely.
I would take issue with their terminology though. To me, geothermal energy is extracting energy from hotspots in the earths's crust, as in Iceland, hot springs, and so on.
This is just using the stable temperatures below the surface as a source/sink for a heat-pump - no energy is being extracted. Hence ground-source heat-pump.
I had heard that these types of systems existed/were used in places like Iceland (or was it Sweden?)...But I wasn't aware they could be leveraged in areas where there might not be as much underground geothermal activity. Unless, I'm misunderstanding what dependencies are needed for these types of systems to work. In any case, if this is not new, any competition to the way we heat/cool our homes - assuming it brings lower prices/more options - is welcomed!
They don't depend on geothermal activity. They depend on the relatively constant temp of the ground below the freeze line. In most places if you go down a few feet the earth is 40-50 degrees F. Its basically a heat pump that uses water instead of air.
My sister outside of Pittsburgh, PA has had a https://www.waterfurnace.com for 17 years. Her system has paid for itself a few times over. She has 1500 ft of plastic tubing burried in her front yard.
They don't rely on any special geological phenomena. They work like a regular air conditioner or heat pump (compressor, refrigerant, condenser, evaporator) but instead of pumping heat to/from the outside air, they pump it to/from the ground.
The advantage is that, while the outside air is almost always the wrong temperature (hot in the summer when your pump needs it to absorb heat, cold in the winter when you need to pull heat out of it), the ground is basically always the right temperature.
The disadvantage is install costs because you have to put piping underground by either trenching or drilling.
Geo-thermal is a little misleading because the systems you are talking about use very high temperatures found in volcanic parts of the world, which is obviously pretty easy. A ground source heat pump only requires 10 degrees or more of heat difference, easily found 30 metres below ground in most moderate temperature countries - it then uses the same technology as air-conditioning.
Loads of them are already installed in the UK.
Iceland gets a pretty nice chunk of their power from geothermal, and the cost effectiveness of geothermal power on a volcanic island (combined with a cold air temp that makes cooling easy) makes it a remarkably cheap place to mine bitcoin, as the case happens.
Another fun thing made possible by geothermal: Some roads and sidewalks in Reykjavik are actually heated to prevent icing over.
(And before someone says it: Yes, Greenland is colder, but Iceland still gets pretty freaking cold. After walking two miles or so in an Icelandic blizzard once, I feel like I can claim some expertise on the subject.)
Misprint? Commonly available ground source systems can save upto 75%. That's way ahead of the article's claimed 20%. At 20% it's simply not worth the cost of installation.
If I'm reading it correctly, the 20% annual savings figure is for the financed installation. They claim 70% annual savings for the cash installation. So their claim is that even if you include the financing payments, you'll still be paying >20% less for energy throughout the year.
I wonder how their economic viability changes if interest rates double. A lot of these kinds of companies seem to have assumptions of historically cheap money baked in.
While Dandelion is the flashiest player in the Geothermal space right now because of their relationship with Google, they really aren't offering too much innovation inside the industry where some really exciting things are happening.
For example, there is startup, Geothermal Drilling Solutions [1], that is, in my opinion, poised to disrupt the entire industry.
Their website isn't great, but from what saw and heard from them at a recent conference, they have a rig that can drill in the basements of existing structures. They are going to bring geothermal to major population centers where it is otherwise impossible, and I'm hopeful from the demo I saw, do it faster and cheaper than "traditional" drillers like Dandelion.
Most cities don’t include adequate ground-depth rights in land titles, so home-scale geothermal in cities is almost certainly out. This isn’t a regulatory thing; you literally only own the first 10 feet of ground or so (hence so many horizontal geothermal systems).
Should play pretty well in the suburbs, where oil heat is more common.
You're right that does prevent some drilling depending on the city and it is a shame as it locks out a lot of downtown properties. I'm also not a big fan of horizontal systems and prefer vertical fields whenever possible.
Still, I'm excited because I think there is a big market for residential and commercial spaces that don't have the footprint or alley access to fit a conventional rig.
> Installation isn't cheap. Dandelion estimates the cost at around $20,000, depending on home size and state and federal incentives. But the company notes that consumers are likely to save about 20 percent annually on the cost of home heating and cooling.
Are they aiming at regular home owners?
Our heating/cooling is ~ $2.4k/year - about $200/month. Fluctuates - summertime is sometimes higher, winter can bring high heating months, but our electric bill is often under $100 for the spring months, so ... it evens out.
This would mean a ... $500 savings per year? $40/month? Are other people paying much much higher heating/cooling costs than I am, and this would make sense?
This makes no sense.. systems like this have existed for many years, and are not uncommon here in Denmark. But the newest thing is air to water heatpumps. They are even more effective, and have lower upfront cost. I just had one installed at my vacation home. It heats about 200 square meters and an indoor pool. It even has en app.. https://volundvt.dk/produkter/luft-til-vand-varmepumpe/sorti...
That wasnt really my point. My point was twofold, that 1. the tech exists, so way praise google X etc? 2. Its already outdated.. air to water heatpumps are moore efficient, cheaper and easier to install. The ground based heat system require a very large yard or similar to lay pretty massive amounts of pipes to be effective. Thats also a very big part of the cost.
It's not a novelty, but they aim to bring traditional costs down.
One of the founders is Bob Wyman, who was one of the most interesting characters at Google. He could talk for hours about prospective search (he had founded PubSub), his time at DEC working on All-in-1 or his advocacy to get rid of No. 6 fuel oil in NYC buildings.
Hmm not sure why that wikipedia article calls it geothermal, you need 0 geothermal activity to take advantage of the temperature difference in the earth.
Dandelion Air is a geothermal system that moves heat between the house and the ground using plastic pipes and a pump -- bringing heat to the building in winter and pushing heat to the ground in summer.
So what we've been putting in homes for ~40 years already. Thanks Google!
My local well drilling guy has offered "geothermal" for years (decades?) Despite a large inventory of wealthy second home owners, he didn't get and still doesn't get many takers. Meanwhile, rooftop solar is everywhere.
My parents almost bought their "retirement home" with an existing geothermal system - it remains the only "real world" home instance of this technology that I have encountered.
$20K also seems very close to the price he told me years ago - I fail to see the innovation here. I'm sure there's something here, but the article doesn't help illuminate it.
I.e. if you install solar by itself, you save X dollars/month. If you install this by itself, you save Y dollars a month. If you install both, is it close to X+Y, or is there some substitution there?
On one hand, you can sell solar back to the grid, but you can't always sell it back at retail, so I would guess your savings would be smaller, but how much smaller? Or would you be able to achieve the same ROI with a smaller rooftop solar installation?
TBH, I'm not really a big fan of rooftop solar, it seems like a hack to deal with shitty environmental policy that undermines the electricity grid itself.
If you live in a climate where you need to heat in the winter and cool in the summer, ground source heat pump are cheaper to operate than oil, gas and A/C. Solar will contribute to reducing your A/C electricity bills and also all the other power you use year-long, so they work together.
If you live in a climate where you occasionally turn on an electric heater for those really cold days, this will only help during cooling season, while solar will contribute all year long.
FWIW: I had geothermal in my house in maryland, and loved it.
The system consistently beat the listed performance specs, which were detailed and complete and easily findable.
See the submittable data at https://www.waterfurnace.com/residential/products/literature
This is compared to air heat pumps, where they give you a single number with no factors, and your system rarely will get that number given your set of variables. You can get the full performance sheets if you nag the crap out of them or you are a contractor and have access to the service site.
It is significantly more common in areas on the east coast (which has a good climate for it) and also areas where wells need to be drilled anyway.
It's less common in areas with city water/sewer.
When i talked with the well drillers, they were doing a bunch of residential geothermal installs each week, so ...
Feels like a bit of 'jump the shark' moment for google...a geothermal heat pump called dandelion from an advertising and search company. Does it connect to nest and phone home information about our homes?
It appears they are using a better drilling method https://blog.x.company/introducing-dandelion-2706eded169a
I was being cynical as we have a nest that underperforms and sometimes behaves erratically.
The website focuses on exploiting subsidies to install. I'd like to know more about Dandelion in case I missed something, will be interesting to get feedback on effectiveness, performance and noise levels
First they've developed a new drilling rig to try and drop the drilling time, cost and mess by 10x. Call the drilling traditionally 50% of the cost. This is for doing vertical bore holes, instead of horizontal trenches.
Second, they're targeting/marketing directly to home owners in cold regions who use heating oil for heating. The data collection/marketing is ground breaking for residential HVAC, but I would guess probably nothing too amazing compared to any modern web company.
Third, they're bringing modern financing to the ground source heat pump space. Similar to solar leases/PPA's is my understanding.