A Paltry Number

I'm just beginning this blog after 3 years or so as an IGSHPA Accredited Installer. When I first began in this industry I had come to it through building, mostly remodeling, where daily the amount of wasted building material continually astounded me even after taking great steps to minimize it. I am someone who is always thinking, maybe too much about process: What's the best number of people to put on that task? How to make movement of workers in an area more efficient? Scheduling the best flow of people and materials at the jobsite? And that was just the basic things. When I finally "discovered" geo, every project I walked through or got involved with brought out one question over and over: Why is this building or house not getting its space conditioning needs meet by Geoexchange? A simple question, naive though it may be, but still a very valid inquiry at that time as it is now. After linking up with a few outfits on geo jobs to see what it was I was thinking about getting into (as totally free help and invaluable to me), I began to realize not only the many hurdles that this great technology faces, but also the sweeping changes that will be necessary to deploy it in the marketplace with wide penetration. First, the basic numbers as I know them:

The geo portion of the HVAC market nationally: 1-2%
Amount of Americans that live in urbanized areas: 70%
Total amount of energy consumed in the US: 100.3 Quads (2004) 1 quad=1 x 1015 Btu's.
Total amount of US energy consumed to space condition buildings: 35+ Quads.
Residential = 19+ Quads
Commercial = 16+ Quads
Retrofit volume for US HVAC market is approximately $12 Billion: $7 billion retrofit, %5 Billion service.
Of all HVAC retrofits: 65% Equipment failure, 30% Home improvement, %5 Client Driven energy decision.

Now, the problems as I know them:

Cost, Cost, Cost. Marketing, Marketing, Marketing.

Why?

The market is immature and will remain that way for a while. Yes, installation is a bear, and less invasive methods need to be deployed particularly in a retrofit situation. But, I've also run across outfits (which is most) whose entire client base comes out of a tiny portion of the 5% who seek more efficient energy systems anyway. I've heard talk like: "We do 2 a month. We've reached market saturation." "We get what we want for these things." "Why would we help you - you're not gonna compete with me are you?" No kidding.

Public perception is driven by marketing. The basic equation is that solar gets most rebate/incentive recognition , wind is closing in fast, and ethanol lately enjoys investor over-exuberance. Solar, we've known well since Jimmy Carter even after its attempted murder by Reagan. The solar industry as a whole seemed to have popular environmental idealism and funded r&d engineering on its side. And good for that. Wasting the sun's copious watt per meter squared energy seems almost a sin particularly since that daily energy received is far more than what humanity consumes. Wind a popular newbie on the Eco-psyche front works well provided the wind is blowing, but comes with visual degradation (unless you revel in looking at towers with spinning turbines all over the hillsides) and still unresolved issues like massive bat kills and bird mulching. In my book that's not very Eco friendly, plus I don't like mosquitoes much. I've heard of some new designs and shapes that alleviate these issues, but I've got to look into them again. Yet, wind enjoys significant financial assistance and promotion. Converting all to ethanol would require more monoculture farming and corn or whatever than we could ever grow without destroying what biological diversity is left in the land. Yet again, dollars at least are flowing.

And that leaves the other solar - Geoexchange. Is it that we the practitioners of the technology simply don't know what we have? Consistent positive ratios of kilowatt energy in returning greater Btu/hr input or rejection aren't enough of a selling point? Shouldn't the industry be fighting for geoexchange to be included as a marketable reduction in one of the greenhouse gas schemes? Or is it simply that we don't know how to say it?

I'll exit this first post by relating some statements made at a recent service/install training program. First, the trainer made a comment about "unnecessary regulations" pertaining to the change of R-22 to R410A. And then later one of the installers present made a statement that included something about "damn environmentalists...". Perhaps we don't know what we have or where it truly should fit in the big picture. The renewable energy interested population, I assume, would like us to quickly figure that out. I welcome your responses.