GEO Exchange Corp.
◦ GEO Exchange Corp. was incorporated in 1986 for the development of commercial buildings, and real estate. The founder's background was with Bechtel, Texaco, and Arco Chemical in the engineering and construction of refineries and chemical plants all over the world including international consulting and attending OPEC meeting for clients in Europe. Along with being the president of a domestic refining company in the United States.
◦ The heat transfer and piping design software used in the refining industry are similar to geothermal systems and the founder has applied these design techniques for Building-to-(Heat Pump)-to-Earth relationships for Geothermal heat pump systems. Geothermal systems are proven to be the most efficient compared to other methods, but existing design software have been derived from academia for research and are limited when modeling heat pump equipment operations found in the variety of zones located in a real building. Research models lack the ability to help the user with heat pump equipment selection and the analytics necessary for good economical designs.
◦ Geothermal heat pump systems only represent a very small part of the heating and cooling industry because the Architectural and Engineering Community hasn't had the software simulation tool to help them properly evaluate the real economics of geothermal system projects. Many geothermal project using existing design methods have added extra pipe to their design hoping this will improve the operating cost, but in fact only adds additional cost that has a payback of 100 years.
◦ The GEO®Hourly design solutions software uses 60 Year old heat transfer theory applied with industry standards, and is a definitive method expanded to reflect the realistic heat pump operation in each zone in the building. GEO®Hourly can simulates single, dual, and variable capacity type compressors. The software simulates each zone using dual capacity and variable capacity compressors by switching to the proper capacity type when the required load needs additional capacity. This gives the Architects, Engineers and Contractors a true analysis of how their building design will perform in the real world. They now have an opportunity to become much smarter about designing buildings by evaluating the contingency required considering the ground loop installed cost with the corresponding annual operating cost for the building.