GEO® Hourly Building Design
GEO® Hourly is a patented geothermal HVAC design software executing simultaneous hour-by-hour zone simulations to accurately analyze building energy, select heat pump equipment, and size ground loop heat exchangers.
- This cloud-based software uses intelligent simultaneous dual hour-by-hour design from built-in climate, building use, and equipment Libraries. Optimized Hybrid design supports cooling towers, fluid coolers, boiler, or auxillary electric heat.
- Traditional design methods often miss the mark on sizing heat pump equipment for specific building zones. The GEO® Hourly approach eliminates this issue by combining equipment selection and ground loop design into one seamless method.
What GEO® Hourly does
Evaluates realistic heat pump operations, internal occupancy heat, and corrects heat pump equipment capacities and performance hour-by-hour for individual zones to mirror long-term earth energy transfer for all residential and commercial systems.
Simulates building performance, zone loads, and heat pump operation for unique hourly schedules by executing simultaneous hour-by-hour zone simulations rather than relying on annual Design-Day and annual monthly averages methods.
Includes National Research Laboratory Hourly weather data for over 470 locations across the United States and Canada. Has 45 Building Uses. Includes over 1,000 Ground Source heat pumps.
Helps lower installation cost by optimizing ground heat exchanger length and matching heat pump equipment sizes accurately to specific building zones.
Calculates heating and cooling operating costs in each zone and evaluates annual economic payback using a unique, highly detailed yearly schedule.
Features built-in tools for evaluating hybrid configurations, including supplementary cooling towers, boilers, fluid coolers, or auxiliary electric heat.
Supports Vertical, Horizontal Trench and Horizontal Bore ground Loops.
Tracks the heat transferred between the building and the earth to analyze long-term ground thermal stability, while evaluating the long-term ground effect of the borehole to forecast the required design length to retain thermal stability.
Benefits Over Traditional Methods
The GEO®Hourly ground loop design method eliminates the reliance on equivalent full-load hours (EFLH) and peak-only heat pump simulations for each zone—the standard approach utilized by GLD-Design Day and Looplink-Pro software.
GEO® Hourly estimates the actual heat pump operational cycles as it models real-world thermodynamic flutuations.
While traditional guidelines suggest the equivalent full-load hours (EFLH) method provides a simple estimate of annual loads from peak loads during the feasibility phase, this approach is outdated for modern engineering. The final design requires a thorough, integrated analysis of site loads; GEO® Hourly replaces these simplified estimates by utilizing a patented, detailed continuous hour-by-hour zone analyses to optimize ground loop systems and calculate operating costs that eliminates the accuracy trade-offs of traditional EFLH approximations.
- “Equivalent full-load hours method provides a simple estimate of annual loads from peak loads needed to size ground heat exchangers at the feasibility study phase of a project; the final design should use a more thorough analysis of the site loads.” (2025 ASHRAE Handbook Chapter 35)
- “Equivalent full-load hours are used to account for the annual heat into and out of the ground as an alternate to a detailed hour-by-hour building energy simulation.” (ASHRAE Kavanaugh and Rafferty 2014)
| Feature / Metric | Equivalent Full-Load Hours (EFLH) (Static Estimation) |
GEO® Hourly Hour-by-Hour (Dynamic Simulation) |
|---|---|---|
| Project Phase | Feasibility / Preliminary screening only | Final engineering design / Construction documents |
| Data Input Model | Peak/block design load (Btu/hr) × static equivalent number of hours running at maximum peak capacity. | Independent 8,760-Hour Zone Modeling: Every zone separately simulates its own continuous interaction between occupancy schedules, building profiles, and heat pump performance. |
| Analysis Granularity | Simplified/aggregated estimation condensing annual usage into equivalent hours of peak-capacity operation. | Detailed 8760 hourly simulation performed Independently in every seperate zone based on climate and schedule libraries. |
| Peak vs. Off-Peak Fidelity | Estimated statically. Compresses building loads into simplified "peak versus "off-peak" at Annual Equivalent Operating Hours. | Simulated dynamically. Continuously tracks the migration of energy into and out of the ground independently for each zone. |
| Equipment Integration | Assumes full-capacity operation uniformly across annual calculated hours, ignoring part-load equipment capacities and efficiencies. | Simulates real-time heat pump operation correcting lab capacities hour-by-hour for single, dual, or variable equipment. |
| Heat Pump Part-Load Performance | This model ignores actual heat pump performance during off-peak hours and omits the efficiency degradation caused by part-load equipment cycling within individual zones. | Corrects rated capacity, power draw, and fluid flow rate dynamically based on entering fluid temperature for every hour adopting part-load degradation. |
| Accuracy Trade-offs | High margin of error; ignores variations in muti-stage heat pumps, often leads to over/under-sizing | Integrates accurate zone-level heat pump selection and multi-stage heat pumps operating at full or part load conditions. |
| Ground Loop Sizing | Relies on static peak loads and estimated hours, often resulting in loop over-engineering or high "safety margins". | Directly mirrors thermal transfer into and out of the earth to precisely optimize ground loop length. |
| Thermodynamic Behavior | Relies on peak-only single-point efficiencies of a heat pump model. | Simulates real-world operational cycles and ground thermal imbalance that are analyzed and forecast. |
| Hybrid & Auxiliary Support | Lacks dynamic sub-hourly checks, making hybrid system balancing and peak trimming less precise. | Simulates auxiliary electric heat strips and hybrid coolers/boilers dynamically to avoid sizing for rare peak anomalies. |
| Economic Insights | Provides generalized approximations of building energy expenditure and long-term costs. | Calculates precise zone operating costs, financial payback, and excess loop length financials dynamica. |
| Software Prevalence | Standard in legacy tools like GLD-Design Day and LooplinkPro | Patented simulation engine featuring simultaneous, multi-zone dynamic modeling for precise hour-by-hour energy and loop optimization. |
Captures the dynamic weather, occupancy schedules, and internal loads that standard peak design-day and average monthly load methods omit for a definitive design.
Avoids oversizing ground loops, which reduces initial drilling and installation expenses while maintaining system performance.
Eliminates the need for complex third-party software integration to convert monthly loads into hourly operational profiles.
Why GEO® Hourly
GEO® Hourly uniquely integrates heat pump equipment selection software, energy model software, and ground heat exchanger design software as an online application.