Why don’t we get started? Um, and uh, uh, so I’m Scott Stone of uh, Gleno

Strategies and very pleased to be here uh, with the second installment of the

geothermal heating and cooling webinar series. This is an initiative to advance awareness and alignment around

geothermal’s role in economic development, energy security and grid resilience among other benefits. Uh this

is episode number two. In our first episode, we explored the practical benefits of geothermal systems including energy savings, reduce grid strain, real

world performance across residential, commercial, and community applications.

Today we are going to dig much deeper into utility partnerships and grid resilience. A timely topic as we look

at, you know, uh infrastructure modernization projects and and and the importance of uh consumer energy

savings. And we’re going to hear from a terrific collection of experts across the utility uh engineering and policy

sectors on how geothermal systems are being integrated into utility operations, how they contribute to peak load reduction and their role in

reliable energy systems in both urban and and rural settings. Uh so without any further ado uh why don’t we get

started with our first uh panelist and uh very much appreciate uh David Personson from Excel Energy senior

product developer specializing in energy efficiency demand side management and smart grid technologies. David thanks so much for joining us today.

Yeah uh thanks for having me.

So let’s take let’s start with you know integrating geothermal heating and cooling into a utilities operations. Um

how are you at Excel currently approaching this? Uh how does it fit into your broader energy strategy?

Sure. Um to start there’s two different uh two different outlets for geothermal

heating and cooling in the utility on the utility side uh from from our perspective right there’s the individual

facility geothermal heating and cooling um and that is something that we would give a rebate for based on the efficiency of the system um we’ve had

you know rebate programs in place for many many years so that would fit into our typical rebate structure

but then There’s uh a whole another outlet which we’re just starting we’re just starting to develop and investigate and see if we could build a business

model around and that’s the utility thermal energy network model and in that model um the utility we would own and operate all the below ground equipment.

So all the pipes, bore holes, pumps, um we would own and operate and um and

finance all of that and charge, you know, a monthly service fee for the customer. So each customer would only

need uh to replace their equipment in in their home or business um in their

facility and pay a monthly service fee to get all the benefits of this geothermal uh system.

And that’s specifically uh what I’m what I’m working on these days.

Great. And um could we um get into you know um and describe more about you know peak load management and other other

benefits for the the grid. You know Excel’s perspective on on how this contributes especially during um extreme heat and and and cold periods.

Yeah, absolutely.

the peak load benefits are are pretty undeniable. Um, so there’s the theoretical efficiency of of

pulling heat out of the ground instead of the air. Um, that’s, you know, based on physics and that’s a pretty rock solid number. In our service territory,

the theoretical efficiency is roughly 2.4x. So, you’re going to get a lot more um you’re going to get a lot more benefit pulling heat out of the ground

than the air. But then on top of that is uh the real magic happens when you start interconnecting multiple customers on a

single loop. Um because on a very you know on a broad stroke uh most commercial customers are net

cooling and most residential customers are net heating. When you put them together on a single geothermal system

they help each other. Um each provides uh a service that the other needs. Um so

in that sense uh the peak demand you know you already started from the most efficient

HVAC system that currently exists. An individual ground source heat pump is the most efficient HVAC system you currently buy. But then now that you

network it and customers are helping each other. You know we’ve seen studies from Europe that show that the peak demand impacts um could be potentially 45% greater um in a network scenario.

So, we’ve seen we’ve seen some evidence that, you know, the the energy and specifically peak demand impacts um could really be magnified um in a in aworked setting.

That’s great. So, so lots of benefits, lots of reasons to do it. How about challenges and barriers, you know, technical, uh financial, regulatory?

How, you know, what are they that you’re you’re seeing and how have you um grappled with them and sought to overcome them?

Yeah. So, lots of challenges. Um, you know, I’m not I’m not on the distribution planning side of the

utility. So, I’m sure there’s technical challenges sort of integrating um integrating these systems with that, but that’s not I can’t speak to that. What I

can speak to very much is the business model and the customer side of the equation. Um, and the biggest challenge

really on that side all comes down to costs. um cost. It’s complicated

to it’s complicated to determine uh the cost benefit of systems like this. Um

and we want to make sure that we’re looking at it through the right lens.

Right? On first on first pass, we’re going to be trenching streets and putting new pipes in the ground. And that’s super expensive. Um any way you

cut it, you know, that’s an expensive proposition. So, on first pass, it looks like it might not be cost- effective,

right? Oh, it’s too expensive to dig up the ground, putting pipes, like burying things. Um, but the lens that we’re viewing it through is, you know, at

scale, could this be a solution that really benefits us, especially since we

have we have a 2050 goal for a gas business to be net zero? So, so that’s what we’re comparing it

against. We’re not comparing it against today. We’re comparing it to the future.

Um, and we’ve already done that. We’ve already dug up the ground and put pipes in the ground. Um, and that’s what our

gas business is. So, that’s been cost-effective, right? That’s been very successful for many years. Um, but you

could imagine a world where the first time we did that or the first time anyone did that, it would look like an incredibly expensive proposition, right?

before any gas system was in place to dig up the ground, put pipes in the ground and install it for the first 100 customers, um it would look incredibly

expensive. So, that’s a dichotomy that we are uh we’re challenged with right now is, you know, the first one is

always going to look super expensive, but can this be a coste effective model in the future at scale? Um, so that’s

what we’re trying to evaluate and you know, we’re all of this gets paid through uh through customer utility

bills. So we’re trying to be prudent with our our customers money in this sense, right? We um want to make sure that what we’re doing makes the most sense.

Yeah. And so, you know, that’s a nice segue into into what role utilities can play from a design and incentive

program. Um I think particularly when you think about where you know policy interventions could be limited or could invariably be more complicated than than

it might seem utilities have a lot of space to operate in terms of how it interacts with they interact with

customers and and how benefits can be shared. So um tell us about uh you know from Excel’s perspective your

perspective uh you know uh financing mechanisms other incentives uh program design how does that uh what does that look like?

Yeah sure. So the short answer is this is exactly why utilities exist, right?

Utilities exist to put very expensive infrastructure into the ground and finance it over very long periods of

time in a way that’s digestible to the consumer um and in a way that you know consumers couldn’t do themselves. So,

we’re probably one of the only entities in the world that wrote these long decades long um financing periods,

right? That’s that’s what we’re based off of. So, I I really believe that the utility model for this um is the

appropriate model. It’s the best it’s the best uh entity to to be in installing these.

Um we’ve been doing that for forever, right? Customers don’t have customers don’t install their own gas turbines and make their own power plants. We install

central energy infrastructure that costs a lot a lot of money and and we share it

over a ton of customers and everyone pays their little slice of the pie and gets the benefit of those economies of scale. And that’s exactly what this is,

right? If we that’s the exact same approach. We’re going to spend a lot of money, put a lot of infrastructure in the ground. It’s going to be expensive, but then it’s going to be in the ground

for a very long time. We’re going to spread it over a bunch of customers and if everyone pays their slice, then everything hopefully works, right? We’re

still investigating. We don’t have any answers yet. Um, but we’re we’re pursuing it and we’re seeing if we could make that business model work.

And I think to bring it full circle, um, absolutely. And that’s a great way to put it. this is what utilities are sort

of meant to do, designed to do. Um, geothermal heating and cooling also isn’t something like that’s, you know, um, you wouldn’t want to do otherwise.

Quite the contrary, it’s worth doing because of all the benefits you articulated. We’re going to with Kevin I think and Boyd break down that even

further. But it it’s something that um that Excel and others uh you know in the power sector would want to see more and

more of particularly going forward into uh you know increasingly um interesting you know future where you have more

intermittent resources and you know you might face other kinds of transmission issues and so forth. So being able to have geothermal heating and cooling to

fall back on from a resilience and a stability standpoint has increasing value going forward.

Absolutely. So as we again I’m not on the the distribution planning team um so I can’t speak to the real nuts and bolts

of that but that that’s a challenge right so when we you know we’re looking at um lots of there’s some urban

redevelopment projects there’s a project called river mile um that we’re investigating in downtown Denver which is an urban redevelopment project

and when when you look at and I just hear sort of anecdotally from the distribution planning team. But the cost

of delivering enough electricity to these new developments is gargantuan,

right? We’re talking distribution upgrades, potentially transmission upgrades. Um so, so this technology that

could really lower all those electric peak demand, which is what we build our we build our infrastructure to meet peak

demand. So if you reduce peak demand then we could build less infrastructure, less electric infrastructure. So this is

very much reducing our need for electric infrastructure and it’s very much reducing helping on the gas side too.

And it’s helping on the gas side in in a couple ways. Um we’re looking at this really as a what

we call an NPA non-pipes alternative. Um so a solution that is used to um in

place of upgrading or expanding uh the gas system um which is ironic because this is a pipe solution but it falls under the

same bucket of uh avoided expenditure on the gas system. So a we’re reducing electric peak demand and then on the gas

side we could be reducing you know installing this reduces any sort of peak demand peak gas demand um

issues. So we could we could retrofit a neighborhood or some customers um and reduce some of the gas peak demand. And

then going into the future, the real value of it is the way our gas business works and most utilities and our

electric business too um is um is that you it’s the maintenance of

that system is paid in through each unit of energy that’s that’s sold. So we sell

whatever a gazillion units of gas and half of that money that we get from that goes to the fuel of gas and then half

goes in uh to maintaining like our pipes network. Um and that’s not firm numbers. I’m just giving an illustrative example.

So, a lot of the strategies that that we are looking at to meet our net zero gas

uh goals in 2050 rely on reducing consumption of gas. But

if you keep reducing consumption of gas, you still want gas there, um then you you have fixed maintenance costs. So,

it’s a real the economics become troublesome if you reduce uh gas supply.

But if we transition to this and if our gas utility was installing geothermal

systems as part of their business model, then then they’re still we have there’s plenty of work for them to do. They’re

still installing pipes and maintaining pipes and customers are still paying into a pipes network, but we’re also decarbonizing.

Um, so it’s it’s really a win-win for us. Um, we’re winning on the electric side, we’re winning on the gas side, and

the customer is winning because if everything works out, right? We’re still investigating, but potentially,

um, everybody wins, the customer is going to get the most efficient heating and cooling system that exists in the

world today by a large margin and not have to finance any of that themselves.

They just pay a monthly service fee to the utility because we did all that financing for them. That’s the utility model. So, if it all works, it looks

like it has the potential to be a real win-winwin um for everyone.

Terrific. Well, Davidson, thank you very much. And uh that actually sets up our our next panelist uh quite well. Uh

Kevin Kits of Kits Works LLC, a professional engineer with more than 35 years of experience in the geothermal

industry, focusing on district energy systems, underground thermal energy storage, and quantifying the grid value of geothermal heat pumps and I’m sure

Kevin lots more as well uh during those uh near uh nearly four decades. Um I thought we could start with with grid

value quantification. I know you’ve you’ve thought deeply about this. You’ve done a lot of um great work on it. Could

you elaborate on, you know, methodologies used um in terms of determining, you know, avoiding capacity costs and just how this all pencils out and and and looks on paper.

Sure. Yeah. Um happy to do that. So, first from my perspective, every geothermal heat pump that gets installed lowers everybody else’s cost of power.

That’s true for the for the next geothermal heat pump that gets installed on the grid and it’s true for the for the last building in on the grid to get

converted to geothermal heat pumps. And what that all means is that the grid is actually a more important customer for

um geothermal heat pumps than the building owners themselves in in my opinion. Um and uh

there to answer the question about well how do you determine what the grid value is that it’s um I would say that there’s no uh universally agreed way to do that.

Um and I think that um I think that there’s really three uh ways to go about it. The first and most accurate, it can

really only be done by the utilities themselves and that’s to look at what happens to the cost of infrastructure if

there’s a mass deployment and retrofit of geothermal heat pumps across the grid. So they model how many power plants are going to get built without if

there’s no geothermal heat pumps and then how many what’s the requirements if they uh if everybody has a geothermal

heat pump for example and then that difference is the value of geothermal heat pumps. So that’s a an expensive

complicated process. It was done by the um DOE and national renewable energy lab. They published a port report in uh

December of 2023 um which people can find quite easily. Um the the next way

is something that we can all do um simply by looking at our utilities integrated resource plan and looking at

what the utility is forecasting their load growth is going to be and what their infrastructure investments are

going to be. And so if we more as David just said, they’re building infrastructure primarily to meet peak

load. So if we basically divide those two numbers on a net present value basis, we can sort of arrive at what the

utilities think their future cost of capacity is going to be and we can use that as um a metric for the energy cost

savings that come from a geothermal heat pump.

And last um which is the way I’ve been looking at it more most recently is um a huge part of the cost of peak power is

the is the gas turbines that serve peak load for only a few hours a year. So if we get rid of peak load through geothermal heat pumps then we also can

incrementally get rid of gas turbines especially at large scale. And so um from that we just uh estimate the cost of a gas turbine using published data.

Uh and then looking at the geothermal heat pump industry about a half a half a kilowatt per heating and cooling ton uh

at peak. Um and and so we get we get the number of kilowatts uh times the value

of that kilowatts and and that’s another way to determine the value.

That’s great. Thanks. Thanks Kevin. Um and uh um a very rich answer. I think

I’m still decompiling um you know midway through. I’ll catch up eventually and um we will be um you know sharing the recording and we’re going to try to

summarize uh the webinar with the benefit of our our um our experts here if folks haven’t um been able to write

all that down. But let’s look at that from a different angle. So when you think about incentives whatever they may be forget kind of what they are at the

moment the justification of those incentives are all of or all this give back or all these avoided costs and

otherwise. Um, you know, how uh, you know, how would you sort of, you

know, go about thinking about, you know, incentives for broader deployment of geothermal heating and cooling systems

given given this way you you’ve kind of structured um, the value to the grid as a whole.

Yeah. So when I look at it, I I think that every geothermal heat pump for a single family home, let’s say, um has a

a reduced in present value terms. So, you know, over the next 20 or 30 years, if we bring all those savings back to

today, um I think that every geothermal heat pump um reduces grid cost by $8,000

to $20,000 per single family home. Um, and then and I and there’s times where I think it could be as high as $40,000 per

home. So that’s that’s the amount of money that I think that each geothermal heat pump is worth. Now, there’s a lot of different ways that that money could

be distributed. So it could be used by Excel Energy, for example, David, to to

install network geothermal or to install standalone geothermal. Or it could be offered as an incentive for individuals

or it could be offered um as an incentive to companies that come in and do mass retrofits on, you know, every

house all the way down both sides of the street. Um, so, so I think that that how

to deploy that that money is is um there’s a lot of different ways it could be done, but the bottom line is that

that’s the that’s in my opinion the value to all all rateayers on a grid from installing each geothermal heat

pump. And as we look at those upper numbers, it could also potentially include the transmission reduction in

utility, the size of utility scale solar, um smaller rooftop solar, lower distri uh as David just said, lower

distribution costs um and less and smaller um grid batteries um as well. Um

the last thing that geothermal heat pumps do uh in the way of lowering everybody’s cost is that since at winter peak and at summer peak they’re using

less electricity than other options then they are using less of the expensive power on the grid and when the

temperatures are mild and it’s heating season they’re using more inexpensive power. And when a geothermal when you

electrify heating in this way with geothermal heat pumps, you spend utilities spend less money on expensive

power and they supply more lowcost power. That spreads their costs out as David just explained over more uh

megawatt hours which again lowers everybody’s everybody else’s costs on the grid. So the these these all can

fold into the uh into the incentive and how it’s how utilities and PUC’s can

choose to implement it. And I think that then would certainly, you know, the goal would be then to

drive, you know, a broader and and I think more more rapid deployment because you’re chasing these benefits both, you know, to the grid and to everyone as a

whole, but then to the individual homeowner, rateayer, building owner, system owner or or what have you.

Um, let’s blend this in with thermal energy networks 10 um uh a little bit. uh you

know um maybe to get us started, we’re going to come back to this uh uh in in some other ways, but you know, sort of

what are they and then how would you fit them into um you know, this discussion in terms of you know, grid resilience,

peak load reduction and and everything else, right? Well, I I think I’m I’m pretty

much technology agnostic. I you know I I like to have a tool belt and I like to pull the right tool out. You know I can

beat a h I can beat a nail in with the handle of my screwdriver. Um but I prefer to use a hammer for that. Um and

so that’s the sort of the way I see thermal energy networks is that you know in the in the couple of studies I’ve

been involved in they are of marginal benefit if any benefit over um just

standalone building uh geothermal heat pumps um in some environments especially

dense um environments urban environments with a lot of different load profiles I I think they could be really valuable.

Um, but the but the benefits that we’re talking about that David talked about, Boyd’s going to talk about, I’ve been talking about, they’re all independent

of the mechanism of delivering heating and cooling, heating and cooling energy to the heat pump. So thermal energy

networks 10 are valuable um in the right application but the grid benefits are

the same maybe slightly greater with a 10 but um they’re essentially the same whether you’re using a 10 or a

standalone geothermal heat pump and in my opinion I you know there’s there’s certain exceptions they can where 10 can

be amazing um but those don’t represent the vast majority buildings in the US in my view.

Yeah. So then zooming out and maybe starting to kind of come back full circle, you know, your your your initial

sentence, you know, with us was, you know, every uh geothermal heating and cooling system installed lowers everybody else’s costs of power.

thinking about it economically from a policy standpoint and we’ll get more into into some of the policy nuances

with with Ryan at the end. Um, you know, like I mean the value of that has got to

be even exceed what appears on on paper, right? like like this is there aren’t too many other options if any other options out there where you know you can

look at heating and cooling and actually see it throw off benefits that are well beyond you know whether you’re going to

sweat or shiver uh when the weather changes. Um, and I could ask you just given your experience, the work you’ve

done to continue to to to expound even further on that and and you know what you think the industry could do to to

take this important you know USP forward and um and and use it as it as it continues to grow.

Yeah, I think I think uh David hit really one of the key points and and that’s that geothermal heat pump

infrastructure needs to go into the rate base and it he’s working on tens but I think it’s equally true for standalone geothermal heat pumps. It’s hundred.

infrastructure that’s going to last 50 to 100 years and um it’s going to go it’s going to live way beyond the next

three building owners, you know. Uh so why not put that uh and and so that

putting it in the rate base um brings the benefit of geothermal heat pumps to all rateayers over a long term and it

eliminates the the barrier to entry that that keeps you know individual homeowners from and businesses from

choosing geothermal heat pumps. Um, so since it benefits all rateayers, then

it’s justifiable to put it into rate base. And I I think the challenge here is that I think I think PUC’s and maybe

even a lot of utilities are a little bit stuck on the idea that central uh central infrastructure is the only

infrastructure that they can invest in and uh into the rate base and I think that you know we’ve developed new

technologies that are distributed and I think that it’s if it benefits rateayers then it ought to go into the rateayer

into the rate base whether it’s whether it’s connected as a central system or as a standalone system and and geothermal

heat pumps are you know going to very most often be standalone systems in suburbia and you know so on and so

forth. So um why not put that long-term benefit um and have it be paid for by the people who are going to benefit over

it for the long term. Um, and that may take legislation. Um, or PUC’s may have the authority to do that already.

Terrific. Well, thank you, Kevin. Uh, this was great. And we’re going to pivot now to to Boyd Lee, outside the box geo,

where he’s the, uh, owner and a consultant with 42 years. So, we’re getting even more experience as we progress here. uh 42 years experience uh

in electric co-ops focusing on u you know geothermal program deployment utility partnerships. Boyd uh welcome.

So glad you could join us today.

Thank you. Nice to be here. Thanks for asking.

So I thought we could maybe bob and weave and cover some some different topics kind of all over the place. Um let’s start with a a free loop program.

Could you explain what a Fre loop program is and how it benefits utilities and how and how it benefits customers?

Absolutely. Uh it directly attaches to uh Kevin’s uh final words talking about

rate basing um with utilities. I mean, it’s a um it is an outside the box, if

you’ll pardon the pun and my use of of my own company name, but it is an outside the box way to look at

successfully implementing geothermal heating and cooling into your utility u infrastructure.

Um after many many years of trying different ideas um and with different cooperatives I

finally landed at a cooperative whose board and general manager really get it.

They understand the value of the geothermal and what its impact is. And hopefully I’ll get a chance here in a

few minutes to really get into that that dollar amount of that impact. But that’s what led us to the free loop. We

realized early on that the barrier to uh most homeowners

um was the cost of the loop. Um there’s really not a lot of difference between the cost of of the geothermal equipment and high efficiency airsource equipment.

Uh but the difference was the loop. And so when faced with that extra 10 to 15

to $20,000 expense, people got cold feet. And so we decided to take just

take that out of the the equation. And so we started offering free loops. The utility provided the expense to install

the loop. So that made it a no-brainer decision then for uh many many customers. And once we started that, uh,

our little small co-op started averaging about a 100 systems a year, um, installing, uh, many years, well more

than that. 125 to 150. Um, now that may not sound like a lot, but for a 27,000 meter cooperative, that’s a huge amount.

And we’re to the point now after the um the previous 12 years, we’ve just about

reached 10% saturation of our heating and cooling uh customers residentially.

And um uh it’s a result of that free loop. And u we’ll get into it, I’m sure, in just a little bit, but the the value

of that free loop, the small the smallest portion goes to the customer. the real value is what it does to the utility bottom line.

Thanks for that, Boyd. Yeah. And and maybe we could, you know, I get you to elaborate further, particularly given your your your your own experience with

with with co-ops in in the past on, you know, load factor improvement, peak demand reduction, um what you saw from, you know, rate design, you know, and so

forth. I mean, would love to really just uh you know, you’ve been at this almost as long as a loop will last in the ground and uh and so you know, what else

kind of from your experience given what we’ve been talking about uh could you share with us today?

All right. Well, let’s let’s go into what uh what that value is and how we discovered

um the the method to make this thing work.

Number uh I’ve already mentioned that there were barriers to uh the customer and that’s upfront costs. So once we

took that out of the out of the way, um the next thing we had to uh come to

terms with is okay, we’re putting in 125 150 loops a year. That’s a lot of money.

That’s about a million half dollars a year. Okay. If we’re trying to expense that uh every year, we’ve got a budget

for a million half dollars, which reduces um other areas of the cooperative budget uh obviously by that

amount if you choose that way. We decided because we’re a cooperative,

everything we do um benefits every single member. uh if we’re doing our

job, every decision we make on every program and so forth and so on has a benefit to every member through lower

wholesale cost of power, therefore lower rates to them or more stable rates longer term, different things uh of of

that nature. And so what we decided to do was apply a rider. Kevin mentioned uh

rate basing and we we didn’t actually put it into the kilowatt hour, but we put a temporary rider in place. And what

that rider did is that temporarily borrowed the amount of money that it takes to make the investment throughout the year from our membership as a whole.

And when you spread that to all of the kilowatt hours that you sell over a year, the impact of that rider is minuscule.

Um, for example, at our cooperative CK Energy, we were able to spread a million

half dollars a year um in across the board to all of our kilowatt hours and

the rider amount was 0.0016 cents per kilowatt hour. And so, you

know, to the average homeowner, they don’t see that impact. And but the results of that after a few

years, you you know, it takes a little while because you’re putting all these units in every year. They need to pile up before you can actually see the

impact on the bottom line. But once they do, then it lowers the wholesale cost of power because of the load factor

improvement across the board so much that you’re giving them back through reduced power cost more than you’re

charging them in the rider. And so you do reach a point to where it’s profitable all year, every year,

regardless of the rider. And that snowballs each year that passes. Um your your

bottom line gets better, your margins grow. Um as an example, we we were able

to uh over 12 years, we were able to shave 4 megawws of uh peak power just

with residential geothermal heating and cooling. Now, 4 megawws to an XL, that’s that’s not a big deal. But to a 27,000

meter co-op, it’s huge. And it what it actually is is $800,000

a year of additional margins because of the reduced demand only. Um, then

there’s also increased kilowatt hour sales because inevitably when you put geothermal in, you’re replacing something else.

uh and many times it’s a propane furnace or a gas furnace or what have you. So there are additional kilowatt hour sales

and you throw those two things together and CK Energy’s measurable impact every

single year from now on is $1.2 million in additional margins, not revenues, but

margins every year. And it continues to grow. So ultimately, we currently have

about 1,600 systems installed and um uh over a 30-year period of time.

The value of that to the co-op and its membership, and that’s this is through reduced wholesale cost of power,

improved load factor, uh expanded capacity for other uses, different things of that nature. Those 1,600

systems are worth $35 million to the cooperative over a 30-year period of time.

Now, that’s outside the box. And that to me is what utilities that forget all the

rules that you think they’re that you’re you need to follow and follow this because it it works.

And you know, if I could segue to another aspect of that, which is um you know, what this means from like a a

workforce development standpoint, something I know, you know, we we uh and you know, you’re down in Oklahoma. Um

there, you know, there’s lots of other reasons why you’re you’re poking holes in the ground uh in Oklahoma, but you know, it’s the same same

concept, same rigs in some respects. And you know, what does broader uh geothermal heating and cooling

deployment mean from a from an opportunity standpoint for young people with, you know, knowledge, you know, in

uh from the industry and the seeking, you know, to develop skills and so forth, you know, how do you how do you

see that um unfolding, you know, as uh as this industry continues to grow?

Well, if utilities will absolutely get behind geothermal uh

heating and cooling like they should, the the value to future job prospects is

is overwhelming. Um you know, there’s a lot of young men out here uh in the countryside that they don’t want to go

to regular college, university, things like that. They want to work in a trade.

and this is a trade that they can get into and make a very handsome living.

And it’s it’s good work. It’s good hard work. Um, and the more of these that we

put in, the more young fellas and well and young girls that want to um can get

into um schools and learn how to become an HBAC contractor or go to drilling school, get on with a driller,

eventually um invest in their own, you know, drilling equipment. it it’s really um

it’s really limitless to the number of jobs if enough utilities are doing it.

Now, if utilities don’t don’t get behind it, then there’s only a a certain number of of HVAC contractors and drillers that

it takes to uh to put the the current demand for systems in. But if we raise the de the demand, we will create jobs like crazy.

Yeah. and not you know we’re going to um for our next webinar um not yet scheduled but uh we’re going to look at

you know workforce development you know job opportunities and whatnot and you know that it’s true writ large from a from an HVAC you know and and and water

heating standpoint but um you know with geothermal you have some some special features namely namely the drilling

aspect and and and getting into the ground which has you know obviously synergies and a lot of overlap with with with you know drilling for water for oil

and gas or whatever and something that’s distinct from broader you know HVAC you know contracting and so something we’re

going to definitely explore later but in the in the last bit of time we have um we have we have Ryan Dockerty who’s the

executive director of the geothermal exchange organization and Ryan we’re going to we’re going to shortch change the policy uh discussion a little bit

given the time and so want to challenge you. And the thing is is I know you’re up for this because you’ve been living, breathing, eating, and sleeping. Um the

policy dimensions for geothermal heating and cooling. what the current situation is, what the outlook is, what’s needed

to continue to communicate and convey, you know, these um significant benefits uh to people, you know, um you know, all

across the country in their homes to to power generators both, you know, big IUs like Excel and then, you know, the rural

co-ops as well. Um so, you know, in like two or three minutes or less. So, no uh uh not a tall order for you. I know.

Let’s see what you can do.

Well, thanks Scott. There’s there’s so many things I could say in the wake of the the great comments and and insight from uh Dave and Kevin and Boyd. Um

they’ve this has been kind of an inspirational discussion in a lot of ways because we’re talking about this

transitional pivotal moment in our in our nation’s history. something that comes along once every century or so and

we’re we’re we’re facing these challenges but also have great opportunities. Let me lay something on you. Uh we’re on the verge of what I’m

dubbing you heard it heard it here first hot PJM summer. So what is PJM? It’s the uh regional transmission organization

that manages the grid from out east into uh the Chicago area. And uh you know it’s not just PJM but it’s other uh is

independent system operators and uh regional transmission organizations like MYSO and Urkott and Southwest Powerpool.

They are all predicting uh historic demand for electricity this summer. And what does that mean for

America? Well, hopefully it doesn’t mean blackouts or brownouts and and a failure to provide power, but it what it

undoubtedly will mean is higher costs and burdens on the average American consumer. And so, we have this

incredible proposition, this technology, which sadly I don’t think in the halls of power has risen to the level of

awareness and acceptance where it should. But I do think we’re on the verge of winning some hearts and minds

in uh Washington. So the reconciliation process did provide a significant benefit in the form of the inflation

reduction act. And right now Congress is in the midst of undergoing and undertaking another endeavor around the

reconciliation sort of uh parliamentary budget making process within Congress. There’s a lot of stuff up in the air as to how this is

going to play out and clearly they’re going to be in the habit of picking as usual winners and losers. Uh we need to

inform and educate Congress just as we are here today with the attendees of this webinar about the common sense

solution we have in the form of geothermal heating and cooling. We talked on the last webinar about the

origin story of this industry. Sprang out of the oil and gas industry in Oklahoma in the 7070s was really commercialized and driven to

market with the help of the rural electric cooperatives in the 80s and 90s and and has despite that always been a

bit of a niche heating and cooling solution. We are primed for takeoff and what we really need as an industry is

certainty. certainty in the tax code, certainty and forwardlooking support from our champions and our

representatives in in Washington. And and I’m cautiously optimistic that we’re going to be able to get that support.

Scott, that’s terrific. Well, um you know, I want to uh we’re going to wrap up. You

know, we aim for about uh about 45 minutes or so. And you know, it’s a lot to pack in to a compressed amount of

time. I think it’d be fun to spend um a lot more time w with with with each of you with all of you, you know. Uh but

the good news is we’re going to we’re going to keep doing this and so there could be other opportunities to come back together. But um I’ll say to everyone who who made the time to join

us, you know, this will be posted and and there’ll be opportunities to uh listen again if you miss something and then we’ll we’ll have other materials

out as well. But, you know, really appreciated such a dynamic conversation around how geothermal heating and cooling can be such a foundational

strategy for for grid resilience, for utility innovation. U and you know to be able to have Excel Energy Kits works

outside the box and the geothermal exchange organization here uh was really terrific. um everything from thermal

energy networks, peak load management, program design and incentives, and of course, you know, Ryan uh your stump speech on on policy really underscores

now’s the time. And if folks have questions about what to do or how to engage, Ryan would be the guy. I I know there’s been a lot of um emails being

posted and please rest assured that um all the uh sponsoring organizations will make sure that this group stays informed

and up to date either through existing email addresses or um or others. And uh and if you want to write a letter to your congressman, uh contact Ryan. He

just posted his his email address. And uh with that, I’ll I’ll say thanks and uh take 12 minutes to have a little

break before your next meeting, I’m sure. And uh we’ll be back um we’ll be back online um with the next one in a

couple of weeks. Uh last question here was where will this be? Um, and uh, we’ll send notices around, but I believe

it’ll be on the Geo Vision website and then it may get repeated elsewhere and there’ll be some social media collateral

flying around as well as we uh, as we go forward. So, thanks again everybody.

Have a good rest of the day. See you soon. Thanks very much. Thanks, Scott.