Andrew Lee is Decarbonizing Heating and Cooling in Buildings

Making geothermal systems viable for low to mid rise buildings

Hi, climate friends ๐Ÿ‘‹ 

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In todayโ€™s digest:

  • Introducing Innovia GEO

  • Detailing their business model, tech, traction and team

  • Why do we need this now?

  • How you can help them!

- Angelica ๐Ÿ’œ

Featured Startup: Innovia GEO

Geothermal heating and cooling technology

Innovia GEO is decarbonizing the heating and cooling of buildings and homes with their innovative "Shallow" geothermal heating and cooling technology.

๐Ÿ”— Check them out: innoviageo.com 

๐Ÿ“ Headquarters

Oakville, Ontario, Canada

โš™๏ธ Technology

Less than 0.1% of buildings utilize geothermal heating and cooling systems, because of the cost of drilling and installing plastic piping hundreds of feet deep using conventional technology.

Innovia GEO has developed a way to get a good performing geothermal system much shallower, between 30-100 feet deep. With this Shallow geothermal technology, theyโ€™re unlocking geothermal heating and cooling for low to mid rise buildings and homes, a segment not economically serviceable with conventional deep geothermal technologies.

๐Ÿ’ฒ Business Model

  • Short term: Offer turnkey geothermal heating and cooling systems on a design-build-operate basis to the market

  • Long term: Offer systems on a utility basis to become a distributed heating and cooling utility

  • Customers: Developers and owners of low-mid rise buildings and homes

  • Current phase: In the commercialization phase measuring success based on pilots they get in the ground

๐Ÿš€ Traction

  • Total funding: 800,000

  • Investors: 4WARD.VC, founder and family equity

  • Supporters: Received non-dilutive grant funding from a number of organizations including:

    • The Independent Electricity System Operator of Ontario

    • The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada

    • Mitacs Canada

    • Ontario Centre of Innovation

    • Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario

๐Ÿค Founding Team

  • Andrew Lee: Co-founder

    • Background: Renewable energy development and financing

    • Experience: Development of wind, solar, hydro and transmission projects across North and South America

  • Jim Ilkay: Co-founder

    • Background: Construction and real-estate development

    • Experience: Career in real-estate development and construction management including 10 years leading the project management division of one of Canada's largest construction companies

  • The Dworkin Group: Research group at Toronto Metropolitan University

    • Led by Dr. Seth Dworkin who is a world renowned researcher in the modeling and simulation of ground heat transfer systems

๐Ÿข Why Now?

Governments and companies around the world are seeking to get buildings to net zero. Heating and cooling is the single largest energy use in our world today (51%) and a source of 20% of annual greenhouse gas emissions, but there are few economic options to decarbonize building heating and cooling, especially in climates that have colder winters.

Geothermal systems are the only decarbonized heating and cooling technology available today that is consistently competitive with natural gas heating on a levelized cost basis. However, existing geothermal technologies have extremely high upfront costs due to the need to drill hundreds of feet deep so adoption is mostly limited to hi-rise buildings and large multipurpose developments.

Innovia GEOโ€™s Shallow geothermal technology aims to cut the cost of adopting a geothermal system to make it viable for low to mid rise buildings and homes, including new single family home subdivisions.

โœจ How Can the Community Help? โœจ

  • Investors: Innovia GEO is seeking a Seed raise of ~$2 million

  • Co-founder Search: Seeking someone with commercialization experience in the building and energy sectors

  • Pilot Customers - Any connections to owners and developers of low to mid rise buildings

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Made with ๐Ÿ’œ by Angelica @ The Climate Scout

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