Leaders in Cuyahoga County are considering a $20 million addition to the cost of the future county jail complex in Garfield Heights.
On Tuesday, council members reviewed a proposal to include geothermal energy to the site. The project would call for the installation of heat pumps, and would circulate fluid through wells or bore holes several hundred feet below ground, said Valerie Katz, Cuyahoga County Director of Sustainability.
"It's that fluid that extracts the heat from the ground in the summertime and delivers it to the building. And in the wintertime it extracts the heat from the building and stores that heat in the ground,” Katz told council members in a committee meeting.
According to Katz, there wouldn't be immediate savings by using a geothermal system over natural gas, because more electricity will be used to fuel the geothermal heat pumps. The genesis behind the project, Katz said, is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
“Preliminary engineering tells us at the end of the day, the geothermal system will likely reduce emissions from the heating and cooling system by nearly 90%,” Katz said.
Cuyahoga County Councilmember Sunny Simon said the additional $20 million dollars for the geothermal system is worth it.
"I'm not looking, necessarily, for a financial gain, I'm looking at the future of the planet,” Simon said. “When we look at financial gain, when we look at these systems, that's not always what the value is."
There are some places across Northeast Ohio that use geothermal energy.
"Oberlin College,” Katz said. “I don't know if it's fully completed or they're still under construction but if they are, they're almost ready to turn on their geothermal system. Trinity Cathedral right here in downtown has a geothermal system."
Katz told council members it could be 20 years or more before any savings will be realized on the geothermal system compared to natural gas.
Cuyahoga County Council will review the proposal again on Jan. 27. Nearly $900 million remains the estimated budget for the jail complex. Construction could begin as early as this fall.
