Ground Source Heat Pumps for New and Existing Buildings

In Canada, the building sector typically accounts for over 50% of annual carbon emissions in metropolitan areas. These emissions are attributed to the combustion of natural gas for building heating and domestic hot water production. As our communities face the global challenge of decarbonizing our economy, the building sector represents the majority of metropolitan carbon emissions, and the lowest hanging fruit to drive the greatest carbon reductions. The electrification of building heating has been acknowledged by the market as the path to NetZero, and through mass uptake of heat pumps, this transition can be accomplished in a highly efficient manner. Ground-Source Heat Pumps (GSHP) are specific variation of heat pump systems that leverage the deep ambient earth as a source/sink to produce ultra efficient and dual-purpose heating and cooling solution for buildings, while typically producing a reduction in a facility’s peak electrical demand and while increasing the overall grid capacity utilization. GSHPs have been known to produce up to 65% reduction in HVAC energy use intensity, up to 95% reduction in scope two HVAC carbon emissions, and a complete elimination of potable water use in HVAC cooling towers heat rejection. In this session, you will hear from Andrei Hari of Armstrong Fluid Technology and Adam Alaica of Geosource Energy discuss GSHP systems, and their application on past projects delivered through an integrated partnership for both new buildings and retrofit applications. This session will review of GSHP technology, design/delivery/operational management, the application of next generation Design Envelope smart pumping, empirical data driven operations/optimization, and project delivery models.

Speaker

Andrei Hari has worked a combined 20 years with Armstrong Fluid Technology. He currently holds the
title of Canadian Business Development Manager, concentrating on educating the industry on a systems
approach to chilled water, geothermal, heat pump and boiler plant optimization with a focus on an
understanding of Demand Based Controls, Digital twins and the application of AI, along with the
importance of flow control. He has also held roles as US North Central Regional Sales Manager, US
National Commercial Sales Manager and US National Sales Manager / Large Projects. He is a graduate of
Ryerson University, with a Mechanical Engineering degree. He has over 30 years of experience in
Industrial, Municipal and HVAC pumping and Industrial and Commercial Heat Transfer applications. With
this experience, he has spent the last 15 years developing an intricate understanding of HVAC
optimization strategies and load distribution systems.

This combined experience gives him a unique insight, not only into the mechanical side of Commercial
HVAC applications but also a unique perspective on a systems solution approach to flow control, chilled
water plant automation and optimization with Demand Based Control methodology, applying Armstrong
Fluid Technologies Design Envelope solutions, all based on the basic engineering fundamentals of Fluid
dynamics, Heat transfer and Thermodynamics.

Adam is an energy professional, with over 9 years of experience in the low-carbon energy sector. Majority of Adam’s tenure in the industry has focused his effort on the feasibility and design development of low-carbon thermal energy technologies, including geothermal, sewer heat recovery, heat pumps, heat recovery chillers, and others; both at the building and community level (district energy). In addition, Adam brings hands on experience in automation and process control from the industrial sector.