GEO-Exchange - Version Geo Hourly - Geothermal Design Software
Patented Residential and Commercial Geothermal Design Software to Simplify your Effort and Improve Accuracy in ground loop design, energy cost analysis, hybrid design, and solar design.
Overview
To streamline and upgrade the design process GEO® Hourly integrates design and energy analysis for geothermal systems, so more Engineers and Architects designing buildings can achieve benefits of geothermal heat pump system economics.
Geothermal systems benefit from the constant temperature of the earth where water circulates in the ground heat exchanger.
- The design water flow rate and temperature from the earth sets the performance of geothermal heat pump equipment rather than the outside air temperature used by HVAC air source equipment.
- HVAC Air system performance changes with the extreme temperatures of air and is never as efficient as the geothermal systems using more favorable temperatures found in the constant temperature of the earth.
- Geothermal heat pump equipment will last 10 plus years longer because it is located inside the building and not exposed to the weather.
- Air source equipment runs out of capacity when the air temperature drops requiring:
- The need for larger single or variable speed equipment with extra inverter electronics that are very complex and less reliable than simple geothermal equipment.
GEO® Hourly integrates heat pump equipment selection software, energy model software, and ground heat exchanger design software as an online application.
- Designing HVAC systems by Zone is the preferred method applied by engineers. GEO® Hourly databases offer the selection of many types and brands of heat pump equipment in each zone for matching building zone Btu design loads.
- The key to designing a good geothermal system is selecting the proper sized heat pump equipment in each zone and matching the design temperature for cooling and heating that precludes the heat pump from running out of capacity over the range of water temperatures coming from the ground. This is accompanied by an integrated design method that adapts each zone to the heat pump equipment stage applying hourly parameters; calculating heat transfer in and out of the ground and operating cost.
- Industry heat transfer physics: ASHRAE 2019 HVAC Application Handbook Chapter 35 describes the heat transfer physics used by GEO® Hourly. ASHRAE USA and Canada design weather data is used with permission.
GEO® Hourly presents comparisons of design water temperatures and economics so you can determine an adequate design that makes your project feasible.
- The integrated energy model in GEO® Hourly does an 8760-hourly analysis for each individual zone, so single, dual, and variable speed heat pump equipment can be easily compared when selecting the design water temperatures. .
- An oversized ground heat exchanger will never have the efficiency gains and operating cost savings to overcome the extra first cost.
GEO®Hourly.com Geothermal Design software has a built-in 8760 hourly generator that is fast and efficient enabling eachZONE to have a UNIQUE 8760 HOURLY ANALYSISfor the heat pump equipment in each zone environment. This is a huge accuracy improvement where single heat pump performance curves are used.
- The heat pump selected from the library is corrected and properly sized to match the real zone environment.
- Each zone is processed separately using the heat pump selected for each individual zone based on the heat pump capacity type responding to the performance capability of the zone heat pump.
- Now you're not forced to only use a single heat pump for the entire building. Running in a fixed capacity condition.
- A new way to evaluate geothermal designs is easy to adopt, and can lower the first cost of geothermal projects. Each zone performs a triple-8760 hourly analysis based on three separate design parameters. Using the energy cost from this analysis a comparison is presented showing the payout for different lengths in ground loops designs.
- Intelligent Analysis transforms your insight for contingency and economic payback evaluation.
Hybrid operation is not an add-on optimization program, but is integrated into the original design method where 8760 hourly analysis and individual heat pump equipment are performed for each individual zone. Every geothermal heat pump design can elect to allow part of the ground heat exchanger to be offset by a fluid cooler, cooling tower, or boiler. Select the portion that you want directed to the hybrid and the ground borefield is designed along with the hybrid parameters.
The Energy-Cost integrated in the application uses your Building Operation selections to apply the operating relationship of the heat pump type characteristics to the building thermal loads for the heat rejected to the ground or heat extracted from the ground. Heat Pump equipment models can be selected from many manufactures-brands for each of the 40 zones. GEO ®Hourly corrects the rated performance data to match the indoor building conditions specified in each zone. Each building zone is then analyzed separately for the cooling and heating loads on the coil, and GEO®Hourly geothermal design software determines how many heat pumps will meet the zone conditions, and calculates the operating cost of each zone.
GEO®Hourly Geothermal Design Software takes load calculations through to equipment sizing. The 8760 hourly integration applies your detailed heat pump operation to the building usage for the Climate Site location you select. GEO®Hourly was created as a genuine simple design tool that is easy to use, extremely fast, and reliable.
Optimizing the length of the in-ground heat exchanger is critical to the economics and performance of a Geothermal Heat Pump system. Reducing the length of the in-ground heat exchanger reduces the installed cost and yields a faster payback. GEO®Hourly geothermal design software provides optimization methods and comparisons that allows you to lower the cost of the in-ground heat exchanger, and match the heat pump equipment size to the building zone.
Auxiliary Electric Heat is only needed about 30 hours a year and often times can be much more economical than increasing the model size of the Geothermal Heat Pump and increasing the length of the ground loop.
Design comparisons present analytics that show you insights into the real cost that may not be obvious.
The in-ground heat exchanger for heating and cooling designs are almost never the same length, so a Hybrid system using a cooling tower to replace some of the in-ground heat exchanger may be a good alternate design for some projects.
- Climate Sites from over 470 locations in the US and Canada have their own built-in library of 8760 hourly climatic data.
- Design conditions are from ASHRAE. ©2013 ASHRAE, www.ashrae.org. Used with permission.
The building usage has a significant impact on the length of the in-ground heat exchanger and the operating cost to heat and cool in each building zone. GEO®hourly geothermal design software has a complete library of about 45 building zone uses and an internal heat gain estimator for each building zone. The general category of building types are list below.
- Retail
- Office
- Schools
- Healthcare
- Residential
- Industrial or Commercial Mixed
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