Energy that doesn't cost the earth
"Fossil fuels are dead, as a viable energy source. Renewable energy is the way of the future."
Mickey McCloskey’s words would doubtless horrify his father, Jim McCloskey, whose business was of the fossil fuels era. From early commercial beginnings in the Waterside, the McCloskeys ran a fireplace business on Shipquay Street through the 1970s and 1980s.
Mickey McCloskey founded his renewable energies company Nutherm on a personal conviction that one day, government would come round to agree that the days of fossil power are numbered. He now sees signs that this shift in government policy is inevitable.
McCloskey is a heating engineer who worked for years as a process mechanic in Du Pont, before moving to manage the heating plant in Magee College for ten years after that.
He was not the only one who did not opt to take on the family fireplace business. Over the years, the rest of the McCloskey family have also diversified their activities considerably.
“My brother, Professor John McCloskey, is an expert in earthquakes at the UU in Coleraine. My sister Ann is a doctor in Shantallow, and Frankie, my other brother, is a well-known Irish language activist,” McCloskey said.
Today, Mickey McCloskey runs Nutherm on a converted farm in Manorcunningham, providing geothermal temperature control systems which heat (or cool) buildings using subterranean energy from the surrounding ground. The energy is collected and concentrated in an electrically-powered heat pump, and electricity is the ‘running cost’ at the heart of a geothermal system.
The idea for Nutherm came when he installed a geothermal heating system in his own house on Inch Island, and from there became distributor for Ireland for the geothermal technology of Europe’s leading geo-heating specialist, Waterkotte, near Dusseldorf.
From the consumer’s point of view, the spiralling cost of conventional energies such as coal, oil and gas have made alternative energies competitive.
“You are looking at heating that costs one-fifth of the running costs of oil. What would cost you 1,000 with oil would cost you 200 using geothermal,” McCloskey said.
‘Save you money’
“If a geothermal system does not save you money on your first month’s fuel bill, compared to other forms of energy, then you shouldn’t do it. That’s the basis we sell on,” he said.
“People look at geothermal as some kind of ‘hippy’ technology - you will be nearly warm enough, your water will be lukewarm, and in the evening you can pull on a cardigan. That is not the case. This system will completely replace the boiler,” said McCloskey.
“From next year, when you rent or sell a property, you must produce a certificate giving an energy rating for that property. That rating will determine how much you pay.”
There is no grant aid available for geothermal systems at present. McCloskey claims this has been postponed in response to a lobby of construction companies and property developers who protested that they did not have the skills, and that upgrading to install geothermal would harm their business.
Despite this, Nutherm has a network of installation partners in all of Ireland’s major towns, north and south.
The first developers now using geothermal systems include Fahan Creek Developments, Danny Harkin Developments in Donegal, and Exitoso (formerly McCormick Properties) in Derry.
McCloskey installed geothermal heating in Exitoso’s new four storey 02 /Caf Zest building at 61, Spencer Road in the city, which officially opened in March 2007. Feedback on the system from the caf owners over its first year has been extremely positive.
A turnkey geothermal system, with its underfloor pipes, is best fitted to a home during the construction stage.
Modifying an existing home to lay underfloor piping and insulation for geothermal is usually less viable, McCloskey admits, especially when you consider excavating the garden for the bore holes as well.
Range of options
Nutherm has a range of options which cover retrofit situations as well.
“An option for an existing house might be an air source heat pump, which takes heat from the air, and can collect energy even at sub-zero temperatures,” McCloskey said.
“But that is not as efficient as geothermal, which uses the very constant temperature in the ground,” he said.
Geothermal energy is the warmth of the sun, which gathers in the ground and holds soil and rock at a depth of 1.5m and deeper at a constant 12 degrees Celsius throughout the year.
A lattice of heat-collecting pipes buried in the garden or ground draws up this heat into the heat pump, usually located in the cellar inside the house.
Using ‘refrigeration technology in reverse’ the heat pump concentrates and upgrades the heat, and heats water which is circulated through the building in underfloor pipes.
Room temperatures similar to radiator systems are achieved, typically 18 to 21 degrees Celsius, and the system also supplies hot water to a temperature of 60 degrees C.
As all indoor pipes are underfloor and hidden, the Nutherm system provides a steady supply of environmentally friendly warmth, with no need for visible radiators.
Cooling effect
Geothermal systems also allow for drawing heat out of a building during hot summer periods, thus providing a cooling effect as well.
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Weather for Derry
Sunday 27 May 2012
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