geothermal design software
GEO® Hourly
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Geothermal Design Software

GEO® Hourly Building Design

GEO® Hourly – patented zone-by-zone building/HVAC geothermal design software performs hour-by-hour simulations and evaluates energy, heat pump equipment selection, and ground Loop/ground heat-exchanger sizing.

  • 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 fail to help designers select the proper heat pump equipment size required for each building zone. The Geo® Hourly approach to geothermal design solves this issue by integrating heat pump equipment selection and ground loop design into a single method.

What GEO® Hourly does

Accurate Equipment Sizing:

Evaluates realistic heat pump operations, internal occupancy heat, and corrects heat pump capacities and performance hour-by-hour for individual zones.

  • GEO® Hourly corrects lab-tested heat pump operations, internal occupancy heat, and corrects heat pump equipment capacities and performance hour-by-hour for individual zones.
  • By integrating realistic equipment sizing directly with ground heat exchanger (loop) design, the software generates a highly precise mirror of long-term thermal energy transfer into and out of the earth.

Unique hourly Analysis:

Simulates building performance, zone loads, and heat pump operation for unique hourly schedules rather than relying on sizing loops with simplified monthly averages or single design days.

Built-in Climate, Building Use, and Equipment Library:

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.

System Optimization:

Helps lower installation cost by optimizing ground heat exchanger length and matching heat pump equipment sizes accurately to specific building zones.

Cost and Energy Modeling:

Performs detailed houly analysis (unique yearly schedule) to calculate heating and cooling operating costs in each zone and the annual economic payback.

Hybrid Intergration:

Built in tools for evaluating hybrid configurations, such as incorporting supplementary cooling towers,boilers fluid coolers or auxillary electric heat.

Ground Heat Exchanger:

Designs Vertical, Horizontal Trench and Horizontal Bore ground Loops.

Long Term Gound Effect:

Integrates the heat transferred between the building and the ground and analyses the long-term ground thermal stability.


Benefits Over Traditional Methods

Eliminates the use of Equivalent full-load hours and a nominal size Single heat pump model for average monthly loads for the ground loop design like in GLD and Looplink 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 hour-by-hour method that eliminates the accuracy trade-offs of traditional EFLH approximations.

Comparison of Method

Feature / Metric Equivalent Full-Load Hours (EFLH) GEO® Hourly Hour-by-Hour 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.
Peak vs. Off-Peak Fidelity Estimated statically. Compresses building loads into simplified "peak hours versus "off-peak hours" blocks based on occupied use estimates. Simulated dynamically. Tracks the continuous hour-by-hour migration of energy in and out of the ground zone-by-zone.
Heat Pump Part-Load Performance Relies on catalog single-point nominal efficiencies or rating conditions before corrections. Corrects rated capacity, power draw, and fluid flow rate dynamically based on entering fluid temperature for every hour.
Thermodynamic Behavior Assumes a nominal size single heat pump model Simulates real-world operational cycles and ground thermal imbalance or decay
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 heat pumps operating at full and part load conditions.
Software Prevalence Standard in legacy tools like GLD-Design Day and LooplinkPro Proprietary multi-patented engine for advanced dynamic simulation
Highter Accuracy:

Captures the dynamic weather, occupancy schedules, and internal loads that standard peak design-day and average monthly load methods omit for a definitive design.

Cost Efficiency:

Avoids oversizing ground loops, which reduces initial drilling and installation expenses while maintaining system performance.

Steamlined Workflow:

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.

  • 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 2023 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.

Project Feasibility

  • 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 Analysis

Design method - unique zone hourly analysis:

  • GEO®Hourly.com Geothermal Design software has a built-in 8760 hourly generator that is fast and efficient enabling each ZONE to have a UNIQUE 8760 HOURLY ANALYSIS for the heat pump equipment in each zone environment. This is a huge accuracy improvement where single heat pump performance curves are used.

Selects the proper size zone heat pumps:

  • 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.

Triple hourly analysis - lower the first cost:

  • 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 Design Integrated:

  • 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.


Energy Model - Zones

  • 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.


Detailed heat pump operation

  • 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.
  • GEO®Hourly has been validated by the ASHRA Headquarters Building actual performance data from the geothermal systems that is reflected in the GEO®Hourly simulation.


Easy analysis optimization

  • 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

  • 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.

Benchmark vs. Design

  • Design comparisons present analytics that show you insights into the real cost that may not be obvious.

Hybrid Design

  • 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 Data Library

  • 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. www.ashrae.org. Used with permission.


Building Types Library

  • 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
  • Schools
  • Healthcare
  • Residential
  • Industrial or Commercial Mixed