Watervliet heat pump manufacturer looks to build heat pump factory:
https://www.troyrecord.com/2023/07/2...tent=automated
From the article: "Energy Catalyst Technologies, a heat pump manufacturer based in Watervliet, is in the running for a substantial Department of Energy grant to build a heat pump factory. Recently the company had a patent approved for its geothermal heat pump technology.
Energy Catalyst has been in discussions with the Albany County Industrial Development Agency and if approved for the DOE grant is looking to build a factory in the greater Albany County area.
Geothermal heat pumps can cool and heat homes by sending water through buried pipes to take advantage of the stable temperature of the ground below your backyard. Heat pumps are cheaper in the long term and utilize less electricity than traditional air conditioning and heating systems. While the upfront price may be higher, consumers may be able to achieve savings on project costs from a 30% tax credit via the Inflation Reduction Act.
Founder and engineer Matthew Desmarais spoke about his budding startup and what could be a significant turning point in the geothermal industry.
“We do geothermal heat pumps and we’re a manufacturer but it will be the first New York-based,†Desmarais said.
“The state of New York has a lot of aggressive legislation aimed at switching everyone over to heat pumps by 2026. By Jan. 1, 2026, you’re not allowed to build a new construction building that has any fossil fuels in it,†Desmarais noted on the shift toward cleaner energy."
Desmarais commented on why he decided to develop the technology.
“Kind of one of the big issues that I could see as a slightly younger engineer and kind of looking at the market is that there was no heat pump on the market,†Desmarais explained.
“Whether it’s air source or ground source that could replace a hot water boiler and about 50 percent of Upstate New York heats their homes with hot water. So we invented it. We have the patent which has been approved and we have the only products in the world that I know of that is designed just to do that,†Desmarais continued.
He noted how his company is planning to implement the technology, especially in the Northeast.
“We’re gonna be based out of the Capital Region. The long-term strategy is to kinda be a central geothermal hub for the rest of the state and New England,†Desmarais remarked.
“The easiest market really is homes that are single-family detached homes that are in the countryside. It only gets harder generally when you get into more dense urban spaces but not impossible, we’ve done downtown Schenectady before and we’ve done a few others that are semi-urban, tighter buildings where everyone’s kinda on top of each other,†Desmarais noted.
He also described how households garner savings from adopting this geothermal heat pump technology.
“All of those buildings, most of them are multi-family, they’re two or three families in about the same amount of stories and they all almost certainly have hot water, usually cast iron radiators, so certainly they’re an excellent market for us because what might cost them today without our product it might cost them, 30-40-50,000 thousand dollars just for the inside retrofitting, we can reduce that cost down significantly,†Desmarais said.
“It would depend on the size of the project but I could see it being five to 10,000 thousand dollars in most cases. So that’s a really big difference and also the time that it takes, which is important. If you’re a landlord and you have to evacuate your tenants for two or three weeks while they gut your house, that’s kind of a big deal but if they just have to make a couple of small modifications and they can reuse all the existing infrastructure, that’s much easier and that’s what we designed the system to do,†Desmarais noted on the savings achieved.
Provided they are awarded grant funds, Desmarais spoke about when Energy Catalyst hopes to hit the ground running.
“The plan is to get it started as quickly as possible. The total project in terms of dollars is roughly a 10 million dollar project. We’re looking for about a 30,000-square-foot facility and how fast we can get everything rolling is dependent on what we can find,†Desmarais remarked.
“We’re still looking at a different couple of options in terms of site but we do anticipate that the factory, at least some parts of it, if we get the grant this fall, will be up and running as early as next spring but definitely by mid-year next year, at least some parts of it is our goal. That is under the pretext that we don’t have to renovate a building and gut it from top to bottom to move in,†Desmarais noted on a projected timeline.
In addition to the factory, as part of the grant funding, Desmarais noted his company is working with a local non-profit on fostering a training program center to help create potential opportunities to help kids in underserved communities find jobs in the HVAC and geothermal industry."
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