Novel Geothermal Heating
and
Cooling Technology
See our recent newsletter for complete details.
Geothermal (Geoexchange) or Ground Source Heat Pump (GSHP) systems have been utilized for decades in the residential and commercial heating and cooling markets. These systems provide substantial energy savings using 40%-70% less energy than conventional HVAC systems.
These energy savings have lead to more than 7,700 MWt of installed geothermal systems capacity in the U.S. Yet despite its proven track record, the U.S. geothermal market is still only about 1% of the of the available HVAC U.S. market.
An overview of the conventional geothermal market and overall market potential will be presented. Conventional Geothermal Heating and Cooling system will be compared and contrasted with Thar Geothermal’s novel approach. The talk will conclude with projected system performance based on internally developed load models refined with on real world system data.
Mr. Portnoff is the Manager of New Technology for Thar Geothermal where he provides technical and management support. His primary focus is the commercial development of a novel all natural geothermal heating and cooling technology utilizing the company’s experience with supercritical fluid processing technologies. Mr. Portnoff successfully completed the International Ground Source Heat Pump Association Driller’s Workshop and is a certified geo-loop installer.
As lead engineer with Thar Geothermal he has overseen the installation of a well field deploying small diameter ground source geo-loops. He is also the co-inventor of a method to lower the cost of installing high performance geo-loop systems. Prior to joining Thar Geothermal, Mr. Portnoff work at Carnegie Mellon University for 32 years where he managed product development and technology assessment projects for over fifty industrial sponsors and five governmental agencies.
In 2002, Mr. Portnoff co-founded Carnegie Mellon’s Center for Advanced Fuel Technology and served as Co-Director and Principal Investigator. His focus was on the development of advanced catalysts and hydroprocessing systems for the production of clean and sustainable fuels. He also collaborated with Carnegie Mellon’s Center for Building Performance and Diagnostics on the selection and use of clean energy technologies. He is a conference speaker, author and co-author of several dozen technical papers and patents.
He earned a Bachelor degree from Vanderbilt University and a Masters degree from Carnegie Mellon University in Materials Science and Biomedical Engineering.
Penn Brewery,
800 Vinial Street,
Pittsburgh, PA 15212
Thursday January 19, 2012
11:30am Registration
11:45-12:15pm Lunch
12:15-1:15pm Presentation
Members $25.00 - Non Members $35.00
