While well intentioned, geothermal heat pump (GHP) incentives—including rebates, electricity cost reductions, tax incentives and grants from utilities and governments—can be detrimental to acceptance of the technology if steps aren’t taken to ensure successful installations. Even with such “carrots” to motivate adoption of GHP systems, some programs have experienced problems due to improper design, installation and validation. There are two primary reasons for this:
• No accountability to verify the system is designed, installed and tested to validate performance and operation, or that the end-user is satisfied with the final product; and,