Systems study of drilling for installation of geothermal heat pumps

Geothermal, or ground-source, heat pumps (GHP) are much more efficient than air-source units such as conventional air conditioners. A major obstacle to their use is the relatively high initial cost of installing the heat-exchange loops into the ground. In an effort to identify drivers which influence installation cost, a number of site visits were made during 1996 to assess the state-of-the-art in drilling for GHP loop installation. As an aid to quantifying the effect of various drilling-process improvements, we constructed a spread-sheet based on estimated time and material costs for all the activities required in a typical loop-field installation. By substituting different (improved) values into specific activity costs, the effect on total project costs can be easily seen. This report contains brief descriptions of the site visits, key points learned during the visits, copies of the spread-sheet, recommendations for further work, and sample results from sensitivity analysis using the spread-sheet