Geothermal Insurance for Commercial Users
Lowering Costs
Commercial users of geothermal energy can significantly lower their heating costs. Heating is often the highest energy cost for commercial buildings. Typically Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems run up a substantial bill due to their inefficiency and reliance on fossil fuels. Commercial geothermal systems, on the other hand, can save a substantial amount of money over time. Commercial users of geothermal energy typically need to offer a substantial upfront investment, but it quickly produces lasting benefits.
Commercial geothermal heating relies on warm water flowing through pipes in the ground. In the summer, this process reverses to create air conditioning because the temperature just a few feet underground stays constant year-round. Most importantly, geothermal heating and cooling is cheap and good for the environment because it does not rely on fossil fuels.
Geothermal Commercial Use: Case in Point
Luckily, this great technology isn’t just available in Nordic fields or the spacious company campuses of Silicon Valley. In 1997, Theodore W. Wheel constructed an $8 million office building with a built in geothermal HVAC system in crowded Manhattan.
He did so by drilling the system’s pipes 1,500 feet down into the ground. These pipes could easily stay within the confines of the building’s 3,500 square foot plot of land because they were built vertically down into the ground, rather than horizontally like some other geothermal installations are.
Mr. Kheel made this substantial geothermal investment to “illustrate how energy-saving technology and environmentally sensitive construction methods can pay for themselves”. But these savings are not limited to multi-million dollar buildings—virtually any office can benefit from geothermal.
Heating and Cooling Buildings
Incorporating commercial geothermal heat pumps is an option for many landlords.
Part of insuring schools, nursing homes, and large commercial building involves accounting for the type of heating and air conditioning system. And during construction, you must insure the various components of the building.
Fortunately, geothermal systems are very efficient and simply move heat from the ground to your building without having to burn or generate the heat from an outside fuel source. As a result, the geothermal system is one of the lowest cost systems to maintain and operate. Also, geothermal heat pump can cool, as well as heat, a building.
Electricity and Heat
Geothermal energy can also generate electricity and heat for commercial users. Commercial food storage and production can use this to dry and preserve food products that you would otherwise throw away.
Low to intermediate temperatures can heat greenhouses, cultivate mushrooms, pickle, extract sugar beets, make fruit, pasteurize, evaporate milk, heat fish ponds, and to dry grains and fish.
Geothermal Insurance
It is important for commercial users to insure equipment used in these processes with coverage for fire, lightening, wind, and water damage. You may elect for special insurance coverage, which allows for any direct physical loss of your geothermal equipment, excluding certain items like mechanical breakdown, faulty workmanship, rust, mold, wear and tear.
Additionally, employees working at commercial geothermal sites need workers compensation insurance as well.
Value Insurance Agency, Inc. can help you get the insurance coverage you need for your personal geothermal installation. Contact us to begin setting up your policy today.
