Accelerating the use of Geoexchange technology in the Bow Valley
Geoexchange is an important renewable energy technology that uses groundwater to provide both heating and cooling in multi-family buildings. This approach was pioneered in the Bow Valley by Frank Kernick, owner of Spring Creek developments – and on this page we describe the work undertaken by students at the University of Calgary to better understand how this technology might be applied, taking into account the area’s geological setting, climate conditions, and building layouts.
We also share their final work products. You can download students’ final report here, and their academic paper here. Special thanks to student Amir Darbandi, who led this work.
This work was supported by the University of Calgary’s project “Mobilizing Alberta: Building Capacity for Climate Action,” and we are grateful to them for that support – and for the following 90 second video, which neatly captures the project!
On a beautiful June day the biosphere Institute hosted 7 Masters and PhD students from the University of Calgary for a hands on learning opportunity in order to see geoexchange in action and build relationships with the ‘clients’ of their research (Town of Canmore, Town of Banff, Municipal District of Bighorn, Canmore Community Housing).
We started out with a tour of existing facilities at Spring Creek: Terry Burch will tour us through one of their Condo Buildings and one of their Townhome projects. This gave a good look at large and smaller scale projects.
Learning about the impressive geoexchange system in Spring Creek. It uses groundwater and uses it directly in their Air Conditioning units - no refidgeration needed! In winter they use heat pumps to extract heat from the ground water, bringing 5C water to 45C which can then be used in the in-floor heating.
Next stop was a tour of the Palliser district, supported by Canmore Community Housing including a look at the existing Hector building, with solar how water system. This site is soon to be developed and one of the big goals of this research is to determine the feasibility of installing a geoexchange system on this building. It has the potential to reduce utility bills by 30-40%, which would be a huge win for affordability for the residents.
Theresa from Canmore Community Housing explains the opportunity for geoexchange on their next development site.
Over lunch at the Malcolm Hotel the students heard from Jeff Roberts, a local resident who is currently installing a geoexchange system on his home in Canmore, as well as from Spring Creek’s energy modeler who explained that geoexchange provides a 30-40% reduction in both GHG emissions as well as cost savings over more traditional, but still ‘energy efficient’ systems.
The student research team then presented an update to the Municipalities and heard their feedback on how they can ensure that what they deliver will be of highest value to the Bow Valley. On the way back to Calgary the students stopped in at Exshaw to meet with the Municipal District of Bighorn and discuss the geoexchange potential in Exshaw.
