GEO for Co-ops! Outreach & Engagement!

The nation’s almost 900 Electric Cooperatives (Co-ops) serve over 40 million people, powering over 22 million homes, farms and businesses across a service area encompassing 60 percent of America’s landscape – see map below. Their mission of bringing electricity and electric end-use technologies to rural America motivated them to strongly support the introduction of ground-source heat pumps (aka geothermal heat pumps) for residential and commercial applications. That support ranged from rebates and incentives to the actual formation of new businesses as dealers, loop installers and distributors of GSHP (ground-source heat pump) equipment. In fact, electric cooperatives and the electric utility industry were instrumental in the formation of IGSHPA and central to the early success of the GSHP industry.

In an effort to re-engage with the electric cooperative community, the GeoExchange JUICE Team (Joint Utility Initiative for Co-op Engagement) is partnering with IGSHPA’s newly formed Utility Committee to launch GEO for Co-ops! a market development initiative specifically intended to provide electric cooperatives with the resources needed to update their GSHP market development programs or introduce new ones. This effort, in conjunction with the introduction of IGSHPA’s GEO101 training program, is designed to bring co-ops up to speed on the tremendous potential of GSHP technologies to positively impact the electrification and decarbonization of new and existing buildings. Leading the GEO for Co-ops! and GEO101 program development effort is Jeremiah Strode, GeoExchange’s Director of Cooperative Engagement. “Prior to joining GeoExchange, I worked as a Member Service Advisor for a small electric cooperative in Mid-Missouri.  To say that most cooperative employees wear many hats is an understatement.  Limited resources and manpower are among the challenges that cooperatives face today. So our goal was to create a program that reduces the time and effort it takes to promote GSHPs, and Geo for Co-ops! does just that.”

GSHP technology is uniquely positioned as the most efficient and effective, grid-friendly infrastructure choice for sustainable, all-electric space conditioning and water heating. The U.S. Department of Energy recently identified GSHPs as fundamental grid assets that have the potential to impact generation and transmission requirements, as well as the overall cost of decarbonizing the electric grid.

In addition, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 recognizes the ‘Clean Energy’ functionality of GSHP equipment, including 10-year tax credit extensions for both residential and commercial GSHP installations, an increase in the commercial tax credit to 30% (establishing GSHP parity with solar and wind) and direct payments to non-profits for GSHP installations.

Electric cooperatives are non-profit organizations, and these provisions will have a significant impact on the market and drive adoption of third-party ownership (TPO) models. For all those reasons, the entire electric utility industry has a renewed interest in GSHP technology and applications. Seeing the opportunity, GeoExchange and IGSHPA have teamed up to provide the necessary marketing and program development resources for our electric cooperative partners by introducing GEO for Co-ops! From training to marketing to program development resources, GEO for Co-ops! is designed to meet the needs of electric cooperatives, now and into the future. Ryan Dougherty, President of the Geothermal Exchange Organization (trade association for the geothermal heat pump industry) stated, “Rural Electric Cooperatives and the GSHP industry have a long and mutually beneficial relationship. With the enactment of the Inflation Reduction Act and a growing trend of building decarbonization, there’s no better time to strengthen and reaffirm this relationship. The GEO for Co-ops! program will serve as a springboard to greater support and adoption of GSHP technology by our nation’s co-ops.”

These resources can be used by electric cooperatives as well as GSHP manufacturers, distributors and dealers to support GSHP program introduction and development. State-level organizations are particularly well-positioned to utilize the GEO for Co-ops! program resources to engage with the electric cooperatives in their state and encourage them to become members. All interested parties are invited to consider conducting a GEO for Co-ops! webinar and inviting local cooperatives to sponsor and attend.

The ‘cooperative’ business model recognizes that local programs, managed by local utilities for local members/customers is a win-win-win model that works for all involved. We’re all in this together! Let’s get to work!

GEO for Co-ops! resources will be hosted on the GeoExchange website, effective July 1, 2024.

Steven Koep., BE-A (Beneficial Electrification Ambassador). GEO Market Development Coordinator.