The U.S. Department of Energy’s latest report details how ground source (geothermal) heat pump mass deployment reduces electrical grid requirements by 33 percent.
In Grid Cost and Total Emissions Reductions Through Mass Deployment of Geothermal Heat Pumps for Building Heating and Cooling Electrification in the United States, analysis from Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) assesses the potential impacts of national-scale mass deployment of geothermal heat pumps (GHPs). The study concludes that the mass GHP deployment reduces transmission expansion requirements by 33 percent under the Grid Decarbonization scenario and by 38 percent under the Electrification Futures Study scenario.
Even though building heating is electrified with GHP deployment — increasing winter electricity use for homes and businesses that otherwise are heated with fossil fuels — the increase is more than offset by the electricity savings from the high-efficiency performance of GHPs for summer cooling and reduced thermal loads owing to weatherization in single-family homes, resulting in substantial net reductions in grid generation, capacity, and transmission. Click here to read the report.
NGWA is spotlighting geothermal technology by retrofitting its headquarters to this technology. Click here to read the latest geothermal retrofit updates.