Has anybody here seen pictures or web-pics of their noo-improved slender drilling technology? Is it the best innovation since sliced bread, or is their primary innovation the $0-down EZ finance business model (ala solar leasing companies)?

https://blog.x.company/introducing-dandelion-2706eded169a

https://cleantechnica.com/2017/07/18/google-creates-dandelion-promote-geothermal-energy/

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170706005986/en

I could have sent them a regular 2" drill bit and saved them a couple million dollars on R & D. Drillers have always been able to drill whatever size hole is needed. Does sound like a zero down and EZ finance scam on an existing technology.

Business model & marketing innovation isn't exactly a scam, but I'm a bit skeptical that there has been much real technology innovation here (though I'd be happy to be wrong on that.) Getting lower cost capital and marketing to improve volumes to lower the delivered cost may work in this traditionally low volume/high margin business, but it'll probably have to be more than an order of magnitude increase in volume to move the cost/price needle much.

They're alleging they can do it for ~$20K/system for the averagel home, which would be substantial savings over the typical quotes for GSHP in my neighborhood, and it would NEED to be to be competitive now that the Federal tax credit subsidy has evaporated. But they're not in my neighborhood- so far they are limited to only NY state, and fewer than a dozen counties (Albany, Columbia, Dutchess, Fulton, Greene, Montgomery, Rensselaer, Saratoga, Schenectady, Schoharie, and Ulster counties.)

[edited to add]

Todays Greentechmedia podcast has some discussion of Dandelion's business model, starting at about 15:35 into the podcast. Jigar Shah (biz-model innovator, founder of Sun Edison) claims that they are using a sonic or ultrasonic drill head to go deeper-faster-cheaper.

https://soundcloud.com/the-energy-gang/californias-cap-and-trade-win

Smaller diameter wells can be done with smaller and less expensive drill rigs. But I don't know of any magical way to make drilling a hole in the ground less expensive. A lot of "marketing innovations" are scams. "Marketing" is usually trying to talk you into something more expensive and shorter lived than other ways to accomplish the objective. The EZ finance part is probably how they are making up the difference. Nothing new about sonic drilling. But it maybe advantageous to that area and makes it less expensive to drill.

I'm SICK of marketing these days....it's gotten waaaaaaay out of hand the last few years!!!!!!!!!! It's ALL about making as MUCH money by doing as LITTLE as possible!!!!! It's SICK!!!!!

Welcome to capitalism, Robin! :-)

Marketing innovations are necessarily evil, especially when narrowly targeted to customers that stand to make a fairly immediate cash flow improvement, which is what Dandelion is purporting to do.

A lot of folks paying $3K+ per year for propane or #2 oil may not even be aware of GSHP, or if they are, they may have reason to believe they are priced out of that possibility, even though it could potentially be the highest ROI investment they ever made. If the marketing effort is successfully narrowed down to those who can benefit, it wastes a lot less effort, time & capital on the GSHP vendor's end and if it increases the volumes to where the crews are busy 95% of the time and the equipment is purchased in volumes high enough for a discount, everybody wins, even if Dandelion still has a decent gross margin.

Frankly I'm happy to have them doing as little as possible marketing by barking up the wrong trees, or overselling the benefits to the less-informed, and would be happy for them to make money at it by increasing the volume sales rather than the margins. Most GSHP contractors are small operators working at less than saturation, and can't take the financial risk of any project without fairly high gross margins. Some of them are barely more than well-drillers with some plumbing skills doing GSHP as a side business. A larger well financed player with a narrower market focus could be what it takes to make GSHP as ubiquitous as 1-ton Chinese mini-splits. Higher manufacturing volumes and broader customer awareness will benefit the small players too.

I think before this is a new product worth consideration, they have to have some actual installations done. Theories are great but it has to work. I would have thought they would do some free installations to show the results. I live in Fulton County. They can come and reduce my $100 a month electric and gas bill.

Posted By smartwall on 24 Jul 2017 01:10 PM
I think before this is a new product worth consideration, they have to have some actual installations done. Theories are great but it has to work. I would have thought they would do some free installations to show the results. I live in Fulton County. They can come and reduce my $100 a month electric and gas bill.

If you have a gas bill, you're on the gas grid, and are thus not their target market. Tbey are explicitly ONLY going after only houses heated... ...with hot air furnaces (not hydronic systems)... ...fueled by... ...resistance electricity, #2 oil, or propane. That's not you. I'm sure they've done some installations (probably not for free) but they sub-out all the work- this is primarily a finance & marketing innovation company, not a GSHP contractor.

I was being sarcastic. With a hundred bucks a month power bill, I don't think it's a wise investment. Lighten up Parahomes is gone. Back to the real point. If your going to sell a product you should have something concrete to show. From what I read their big breakthrough was the speed of drilling the holes. So they must be equipment installers. Unless they only drill holes for a living.

I agree that their website is a bit content-free, and I too have lots of questions about the particulars on many levels, which, which is what motivated my starting this thread.

The hype about a new drilling technology appears to be 100% hype. If I understand their public statements correctly, the hands-on installers are all subcontractors, managed by the parent organization, so it's really about marketing & finance innovation.

Their paradigm middle-of-the road customer is paying $2500/year in propane, oil, or electricity, which is enough money that they can make the numbers work. It clearly isn't going to work (for you or them) if your utilities & heat add up to $100/month, but at something like twice that for just the heat & hot water it probably does (at least on paper- I'm still a skeptic.)

I share your skepticism and agree with all your points (a rare occasion). They target NYS for high energy costs of propane, oil and electricity (resistant heat) and increasing favorable public policy frameworks. NYS starts to realize that we (they) need to get rid of fossil fuels in the heating sector and has developed a policy framework, so the writing is on the wall. And many people need financing in order to afford geo, plain and simple. Their goal is to provide it, which is a very good thing. And maybe get prices down in the meantime. Keep in mind that MYS currently has a $1500/ton cash rebate, so the $20K is after the rebate.
They had some easy drills done on long island with their sonic drills, lets see what happens when the drill in rock.....
And lets see what happens when they do their first pressure drop calculation, and find out it is tough to get the two 1.25" pipes needed down a 2" borehole.

But we wish them good luck, but we all know that this is individualized hardware, not an technology which can be developed as a platform, and then multiplied a few hundred million times.

Posted By docjenser on 26 Jul 2017 01:18 AM
They had some easy drills done on long island with their sonic drills, lets see what happens when the drill in rock.....
And lets see what happens when they do their first pressure drop calculation, and find out it is tough to get the two 1.25" pipes needed down a 2" borehole.

But we wish them good luck, but we all know that this is individualized hardware, not an technology which can be developed as a platform, and then multiplied a few hundred million times.

I agree!

Sonic drilling works fine in most rock, but I suspect the wear & tear factors are pretty high.

They have managed to convince some investor financing that they can do it, but the proof will be in the pudding.

financial investors do not understand the technology well, they just look at the numbers.

We all know the numbers are intriguing, and the northeastern heating dominating states realize that a dramatic change in public policy is needed to fulfill the Co2 emission standards, which is why the start in selected counties in NYS, targeting oil and propane users.
But I don't see much innovation (yet), but there is a lot of potential for innovative financing and vertical integration.

Not sure if solar city is considered a success or not, but it has certainly raised the awareness. The concept was collapsing when prices dropped and people figured out that they are better off financing it themselves, through loans or other means. I welcome Google and Dandelion to the Geo Family, and I welcome any awareness to the technology they can raise.

But they get the concept. The future is all about energy, and geo delivering about 2.72 times as much energy as solar does per dollar spent (combined with the need to heat and cool your building) with the least amount of peak demand nightmare potential makes this the only technology currently available for large scale adoption.

Solar City had favorable financing for outright purchase too, but have a fairly high customer acquisition cost, the marketing & sales costs per customer. They also invested a lot in PV panel manufacturing to become a more vertically integrated company and to have an assured supply chain as the grew, something that was looked upon less favorably by most analysts. Smaller regional & local solar installers have better margins, despite higher cost for the hardware itself.

Using the 2.72x energy multiplier per dollar for GSHP vs. solar is a bit disingenuous, since electricity a premium priced energy with many higher end uses than low-temp heat. It's mathematically true on a BTU basis, but not on a value basis.

Posted By Dana1 on 26 Jul 2017 07:41 PM
Using the 2.72x energy multiplier per dollar for GSHP vs. solar is a bit disingenuous, since electricity a premium priced energy with many higher end uses than low-temp heat. It's mathematically true on a BTU basis, but not on a value basis.

So what is the higher value of electricity being used? One needs to heat my house, and one needs to cool it. This takes energy. This causes emissions with a conventional system. I need to inject heat in form of energy. I don't have a choice. I can do this on demand, I can tap into stored energy whereas it did not cost me much to create the storage. If it is cold in the winter, the heat has a high value to me. Not sure if I see so much difference between energy values. In the end it is energy, and if I don't use renewables, I have to use fossil fuels.

Most home heating is achieved by much cheaper energy than retail electricity at a COP of 1. To use a dumb BTU multiplier implies otherwise.

Honestly, I'd be VERY careful about solutions coming from Alphabet (Google).

They have a long history of half-assing through a project, then dropping.

They're ESPECIALLY bad on projects that require actual blue-collar labor. Since it's a cost they simply CANNOT control (see Google Fiber, who now no longer lay anymore fiber and are "concentrating on wireless").

Also, ask yourself how hard you want your home data-mined.

At the end of the day, whatever you call the company, it's Google. It's about giving you a service, and then endlessly collecting data on you.

At least with a website, they have to splash a "Do you agree" message up if their terms change. How do they handle that for your HVAC system?
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Honestly, if you want to go Geothermal, look at a more conventional provider with standard best-of-breed equipment.

You may pay a bit more up front. But you've got a known quantity that isn't likely to fold up and disappear when some Silicon Valley "smart guy" gets a bug up his ass. And you'll be investing in equipment that has a known service channel.

Posted By Dana1 on 27 Jul 2017 06:33 PM
Most home heating is achieved by much cheaper energy than retail electricity at a COP of 1. To use a dumb BTU multiplier implies otherwise.

The new paradigm to account costs is not $$$ but emissions. What matters is how much renewable energy can I deliver for each $ spend.To burn anything to heat a house will soon be as obsolete as sending an electric current through a wire to enlighten a room, e.g. an incandescent light ball. It will happen partially by carrot, and partially by stick. E.g. partially by economics, and partially by public policy.

Posted By Dana1 on 26 Jul 2017 07:41 PM
Solar City had favorable financing for outright purchase too, but have a fairly high customer acquisition cost, the marketing & sales costs per customer. They also invested a lot in PV panel manufacturing to become a more vertically integrated company and to have an assured supply chain as the grew, something that was looked upon less favorably by most analysts. Smaller regional & local solar installers have better margins, despite higher cost for the hardware itself.

I do like this analogy to solar city. The managing and planning costs per install will be even greater, due to the individual complexity of the install in comparison to a relatively simple solar system.

Posted By docjenser on 28 Jul 2017 04:12 AM

Posted By Dana1 on 27 Jul 2017 06:33 PM
Most home heating is achieved by much cheaper energy than retail electricity at a COP of 1. To use a dumb BTU multiplier implies otherwise.

The new paradigm to account costs is not $$$ but emissions. What matters is how much renewable energy can I deliver for each $ spend.To burn anything to heat a house will soon be as obsolete as sending an electric current through a wire to enlighten a room, e.g. an incandescent light ball. It will happen partially by carrot, and partially by stick. E.g. partially by economics, and partially by public policy.

Posted By Dana1 on 26 Jul 2017 07:41 PM
Solar City had favorable financing for outright purchase too, but have a fairly high customer acquisition cost, the marketing & sales costs per customer. They also invested a lot in PV panel manufacturing to become a more vertically integrated company and to have an assured supply chain as the grew, something that was looked upon less favorably by most analysts. Smaller regional & local solar installers have better margins, despite higher cost for the hardware itself.

I do like this analogy to solar city. The managing and planning costs per install will be even greater, due to the individual complexity of the install in comparison to a relatively simple solar system.

Doc, you contradict yourself here.

First you say "Not dollars, but emissions".  True up to a certain point.

Then you say what matters is how much renewable energy you can deliver for each dollar you spend.

As for your assertion that burning anything will be obsolete.

Doubtful.  Small, high efficiency wood/pellet stoves are still dirt cheap   And depending on where you live and the amount of space you need to heat, wood and wood byproducts (pellets, fire logs, etc) are plentiful and inexpensive.