Whiting Geothermal - Reasons for choosing a geothermal heat pump solution

Why Geothermal?

Geothermal is an efficient, green, reliable, and low maintenance heating and cooling solution. The rate of adoption is increasing, and winning marketshare among new and retrofit municipal buildings, school buildings, churches, single family and multi-family residences, commercial buildings, and so on. Thousands of geothermal heat pumps are now in operation, here in the US and abroad, and the rate of adoption has been increasing as energy costs have risen, dependence on foreign energy sources has increased, and as mitigation of global warming has become recognized as an important factor on which we all must share responsibility.

Geothermal is a solution that works for commercial and residential applications throughout North America. The technology has actually been around for decades, but only in the last 10 years has it really started to take off. Thousands of geothermal heat pumps are now in operation, here in the US and abroad, and the rate of adoption has been increasing as energy costs have risen, dependence on foreign energy sources has increased, and as mitigation of global warming has become recognized as an important factor on which we all must share responsibility.

Efficient:
Heating and cooling with geothermal heat pumps can easily cut energy bills by over 50%. The only energy used in a heat pump system is for the system to run itself. The heating and cooling itself is done by moving heat energy from or to the earth, depending on the season. And the earth's energy is of course free.

Low Maintenance:
Because geothermal heat pumps can be used for heating, cooling and hot water, there are fewer systems to maintain. GHPs systems require very little maintenance in their own right. GHPs are located indoors, so they are out of the weather (unlike most air conditioning units), and they don't have fireboxes to get burned out, boilers to replace, or chimneys to keep clean.

Green:
Heating and cooling homes, schools, municipal, retail, and industrial buildings accounts for over 20% of all energy use in this country, the vast majority of which is now obtained from fossil fuels. This is without question a major contributor of pollution and greenhouse gases. Fortunately, GHPs are an environmentally friendly alternative to the status quo.

Geothermal is a green energy source. Transferring energy to or from the ground requires some electrical energy to run a heat pump system, but the actual heat energy from the ground emits no greenhouse gas or pollution. Likewise, cooling a building by using the earth as a 'heat sink' has the benefit of being more efficient than traditional means of air conditioning. As a result, heating and cooling with a ground source heat pump creates over 50% less greenhouse gas than the usual combustion-dependant alternatives.

Reliable:
Geothermal is a readily available source of energy across the US. The energy available in the ground has the great benefit of being both plentiful and renewable.

Even when the the air is frigid cold or uncomfortably hot, the temperature of the ground a few feet underneath the surface never varies by more than a few degrees. That energy in the ground in the form of heat slowly radiating from the earth's core can be counted on to heat your building on even the coldest days (as it does on the most frigid winter days of New England, the Upper Midwest, Canada, and the Nordic countries). The earth also acts as a reliable heat sink for cooling buildings on the hottest summer days. The same heat pump system can efficiently manage heating, cooling and hot water.