By Joe Harwood
The Register-Guard
With power prices in the West skyrocketing, Foote has decided to install expensive geothermal heating and cooling systems for the remaining 200 or so home he plans to build at Avalon Village over the next two years.
Foote has already completed about 180 homes in the west Eugene development using standard natural gas forced air systems.
"When I heard the (Bonneville Power Administration) was considering another rate increase in October, it really lit a fire under me," Foote said. "The energy supply problem is only going to get worse, so I decided to pursue it."
Foote appears to be the first Lane County developer to install geothermal systems on a broad scale in a large subdivision. Because they are spendy, the systems typically are installed only at, for example, custom high-end homes, or at public facilities.
Geothermal, or ground source, heating systems can save homeowners 25 percent to 60 percent on energy bills, according to the Eugene Water & Electric Board. And the systems, considered the most efficient on the market, don’t require a boiling geyser in the back yard to operate efficiently.
As power costs grow larger in coming years, efficiency and conservation measures — largely dropped in past decades in response to ultra-cheap hydroelectric power — are likely to become more commonplace.
In response to the West's energy supply crisis and soaring wholesale rates, EWEB, the Springfield Utility Board, the Emerald People’s Utility Board and Lane Electric Cooperative have already increased retails rates this year, most by 10 percent or more.
The BPA, which supplies most of the Northwest's power, will hike the rates it charges utilities in October. Those wholesale rates could go up by 100 percent or more. Most utilities would have to increase retail rates by about half the eventual wholesale rate hike by the BPA.
The current and expected sticker shock is prompting utilities, governments and developers to search for solutions.
Foote said he decided on geothermal hearing and cooling as a way to reduce energy demand, save homeowners money over the long term and add value to the homes he is building.
But geothermal systems bring a little sticker shock of their own.
Foote figures installing geothermal is about $4,000 more expensive than a high efficiency natural gas heat pump system, which can cost from $7,000 to $10,000 to install in a new home.
Unusual in the Northwest
Geothermal systems are relatively rate in the Northwest, but they have been in use in other parts of the country for decades. The federal government for years has used geothermal systems at military bases.
"The price of power has been so cheap here that (geothermal) hasn’t been cost effective," said P. Steve Stuart, an energy management specialist with EWEB. "But with the price of power going up, people will find it work their while."
Stuart estimates homeowners with geothermal systems can recover the cost of equipment and installation within seven to 10 years. "If they are going to stay for a while, it will pay them," he said.
Andrew Gray of Eugene, who with his wife is purchasing one of Foote geothermal homes, said he’s excited about the long-term benefits.
"It will pay for itself over time, and when people realize how this works, it is going to add to the resale value," Gray said.
A study by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found geothermal systems are about 48 percent more efficient than the best gas furnaces and 75 percent more efficient than oil furnaces.
Another EPA study found geothermal systems have the lowest lifetime costs of all systems on the market today. The study noted that geothermal systems are basically maintenance-free compared with other systems.
How It Works
Geothermal systems are essentially electric-powered heat pumps connected to high-density polyethylene piping buried deep in the ground.
At each Avalon Village home, the three-quarter inch plastic piping will be formed in a U-shaped loop and buried vertically in a small well at an average depth of 80 feet. Depending on the size of the home, each geothermal system will require two to five loops, said Jesse Fittipaldi, sales and marketing director for Eugene-based United Garibay Heating and Air Conditioning, which is designing and installing the systems in the Avalon homes.
Fittipaldi, along with his father Vince, who owns the company, are among the handful of Oregonians certified to install geothermal systems.
The plastic pipes are filled with water and an antifreeze solution. The fluid circulates through the underground loop to the heat pump, which sends the warm or cool air to a fan that circulates it through the house.
Because the temperature below ground is fairly constant – about 55 degrees in Western Oregon — geothermal energy is simple to tap. As the fluid circulates through the loops, it is cooled or heated to the constant 55 degrees of the Earth’s crust.
In the winter — when the outside air temperature might be 38 degrees — heat is extracted from the ground via the circulating fluid in the loops. That fluid, already 55 degrees is then heated to, say, 70 degrees by the heat pump and circulated in the house.
"It takes a lot less energy to heat something that is already 55 degrees than something that is 35 degrees," Fittipaldi said.
In the summer, the system is reversed. To cool the air, the pump uses the same fluid to whisk heat out of the home and bring in coolness from the Earth.
By comparison, standard heat exchange systems have to work harder in the winter to warm the air because they are pulling air from outside; and in the summer those exchangers are pulling warm air into the system which then must be cooled.
Fittipaldi said that because the geothermal heat pumps don’t have to work as hard as conventional equipment, they are much quieter.
"And since they aren’t exposed to outside elements, they don’t need the regular maintenance of a (traditional) heat pump," he said.
About the only problem Foote has encountered with the geothermal systems is the soil under his subdivision.
Costly well drilling
Well drillers in the Willamette Valley frequently run into layers of gravel deposits and water, which make the holes they are digging cave in. To combat that, Fittipaldi and Foote are installing steel casing in each well, which adds material and labor costs.
"The big questions is what’s in the ground," Foote said. "Some holes are going to be more expensive than others."
Cottage Grove-based Hendrickson Well Drilling Inc., which is doing the work at Avalon, has developed several different ways to drill the holes, Foote said.
The trick will be to devise a system that is consistent and cost-effective, he said. "But I have confidence they will get it done."
The piping in the ground is guaranteed by the manufacturer to last 50 years.
Once he and his subcontractors master the tricks of installing geothermal systems, Foote said he'll go back to the existing 180 homeowners in his development with conventional heating equipment and offer them a chance to convert to geothermal.
Home prices in Avalon Village range $118,000 up to $192,000.
Stuart said Avalon could be the largest development using geothermal systems in the Northwest. "I haven’t heard of anything else that large," he said.
The Washington, D.C.-based Geothermal Heat Pump Consortium estimates there are about 500,000 homes and other buildings such as schools with geothermal systems. The manufacturer's group estimates there will be 2 million of the systems installed in the United States by 2005.
