How Thermenex Works
While conventional heating and cooling systems use energy to create the desired climate, the Thermenex system maximizes the reuse of a building’s own thermal energy, effectively lowering your energy use and GHG emissions.
The difference is clear – Transferring thermal energy from where it is not needed, to where it is needed, simply makes more sense.
2011 Canadian Consulting Engineering Awards
What is Thermenex?
Thermenex is a true innovation for the heating and cooling of buildings. It is not a fine-tuning of current practice in an effort to increase efficiency of building mechanical systems. It reduces Green House Gases (GHG) and saves energy for low cost.
In order to understand how Thermenex works, we need to reconsider what it means to heat a building. We can either CREATE thermal energy for a building, such as with fossil fuels or electricity, or we can TRANSFER thermal energy for heating a building, such as a ground source system. CREATING heat is the cause of the problem. We need to focus on TRANSFER of thermal energy for the solution.
Now step back and ask the question “From where?” Geo-exchange is the transfer of thermal energy from the earth to the building. But is it the best source of thermal energy? The answer is no because the ground is cold! The best source of thermal energy is from within the building. It varies for each building but 50% – 100% of a building’s annual heating energy can come from itself.
How Thermenex Works
The patent pending system called Thermenex stands for Thermal Energy Exchange. It is an innovative use of a fluid filled pipe with a temperature gradient that performs as a thermal energy hub. A Thermenex pipe, or header, is not a loop, it does not store energy nor does it stratify. It does not have a pump or any control valves. It is simply a pipe with one end warmer than the other. This header is connected to the mechanical heating and cooling systems and effectively manages a building’s thermal energy. No heat is rejected from a building until there is more thermal energy than the building needs and no heat is added to a building until it has used all of its own thermal energy.
Energy transfer heating requires low temperature heating – the lower the temperature, the more efficient the transfer of thermal energy. The Thermenex technology is not based on a fixed water temperature; water is only heated to the lowest temperature needed at a given time resulting in mechanical heat transfer systems that are always working at their highest efficiency.
Cooling is simply the removal of heat, similar to darkness being the absence of light. A cooling load in a building is a better source of heat than any alternative. Transferring the thermal energy directly to where it is needed simply makes sense.
There are only two ways to save energy. Reduce or reuse. Adopting the Thermenex system will maximize the reuse of thermal energy, and applying good engineering practice can further reduce energy consumption. The result is a reduction in energy usage and GHG emissions without a large capital cost premium.