In the summer of 2017, Dandelion CEO Kathy Hannun, Director of Communications Katie Ullmann, and a cadre of interns roamed Rhinebeck's village center to introduce homeowners to their geothermal start-up. Standing outside of Bread Alone, they offered free cups of coffee in exchange for hearing their pitch. Now, they've installed dozens of their geothermal systems around the Hudson Valley.
In August, some of the homeowners who received the systems will open their homes to the public to celebrate and demonstrate how it works. Indeed, they have good reason to show off their goods—last winter Hudson Valley oil companies raised prices anywhere from 4.4 to 32.7 percent over the previous year. Meanwhile, those with Dandelion systems may be paying as little as half of what propane and oil users are paying.
Geothermal energy harnesses the natural heat from the earth to heat and cool buildings. Essentially, water is pumped a few hundred feet down, heated by the earth and then pumped back up to the building, with only a small boost needed from electricity. However enticing, historically it's been a very expensive alternative, costing homeowners an average of $40,000 for installation.
That's until 2015, when Kathy Hannun, product manager at X, Google's subsidiary, Alphabet's semi-secret research and development lab, brought to her colleagues' attention the lack of work done globally to offer homeowners heating and cooling alternatives. "Nobody says, 'I love my fuel company,'" says Hannun. And yet 70 million US residents, mostly on the East Coast and Midwest, white knuckle it each year as they pay for bad experiences with fuel companies, long wait times on fuel oil deliveries during storms, and unpredictable fuel oil prices.Hannun started digging into why geothermal technology is so niche and expensive. "Because if it were more accessible," says Hannun, "it would be a great solution and more pleasant to use than a lot of the alternatives."