Michael Sachse, chief executive officer of Dandelion, said the company has hundreds of homes that are “under contract to install our systems, and dozens more where we have already installed them.”
“We’ve actually been turning people away until we can ramp up our capacity to do the work,” Sachse said. “We’re looking to hire dozens of people this year, everyone from warehousing people to drillers and heat pump installers.”
Geothermal heating systems use an electric-powered heat pump inside a home. The buried tube or pipe system, also known as ground loops, circulates fluid.
The heat pump and circulating fluid continuously transfer heat.
During summer, the geothermal system draws heat from the air in a home and transfers it to the ground, where the temperature remains at about 55 degrees. In the winter, it draws heat from the ground and transfers it to the home.
With the average geothermal system costing about $40,000, Sachse said one factor that makes the company’s expansion possible are new incentives introduced by Connecticut’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.
“The state has a $1,500 per ton incentive for ground storage heat,” he said. “A typical system has five tons of ground storage heat. There is also a federal tax credit incentive that can knock down that $40,000 system to $22,500.”
Sachse said that even at that price, “geothermal heating isn’t cheap, but neither is using oil heat.” The company offers financing for geothermal heating systems.
The average payback window is seven years, according to Sachse. “New oil furnaces cost a lot, and so do repairs,” he said.
When asked if the company’s limited window of installation data warranted adding workers and a centralized distribution facility in Connecticut, Sachse said “there’s always risk.”
“You can never be 100 percent sure that this level of interest will continue,” he said. “But we’re confident the level of interest will hold.”
Dandelion’s decision to expand escalates its battle with home heating oil companies over market share.
Chris Herb, president of the Connecticut Energy Marketers Association, which represents independent home heating oil dealers in the state, said the number of customers that his members lose to geothermal heating system “is not even on the radar because of the costs associated.”
“It usually makes more sense if you are building a new home and plan to live their for 15 or 20 years,” Herb said. “Natural gas tends to be the primary threat when it comes to conversions. But 45 percent of people in Connecticut still heat their homes with liquid fuel, which is how we refer to home heating oil.”
Dandelion Energy is not the only company in Connecticut installing geothermal energy systems, but it’s the one with the highest profile right now.
Many geothermal companies are family-run, small operations that have been in business for years, and who also do other types of work, like drilling wells for water. In Cheshire, Sima Drilling has been installing geothermal since the 1970s.
luther.turmelle@hearstmediact.com