Spy Cider House & Distillery

GEOptimize Inc. provided the geothermal system design for the proposed Spy Cider House & Distillery production facility in Thornbury, Ontario. Unlike a conventional commercial geothermal application, the system was designed to satisfy both the building’s space conditioning requirements and the highly variable process heating and cooling demands associated with cider fermentation, carbonation, and distillation.

The approximately 3,000 ft² facility utilized water-to-water heat pumps connected to a horizontal ground heat exchanger (GHX). While the building loads were relatively modest, the majority of the system capacity was dedicated to process equipment, including six 2,950-gallon temperature-controlled fermentation and storage tanks, a low-temperature carbonation tank, and an 18-ton distillation condenser used to cool alcohol vapour during the distillation process. Each process required precise temperature control over a wide operating range to maintain product quality.

GEOptimize completed detailed heating and cooling load calculations for both the building and cider production process and integrated these loads into the geothermal system design. The mechanical system was configured with hot and cold thermal storage tanks, allowing the heat pumps to operate in multiple modes, including simultaneous heating and cooling. During fermentation and product cooling, heat extracted from the cider could be recovered to provide space heating or hot water, significantly improving overall system efficiency while reducing energy consumption.

A horizontal ground heat exchanger was selected based on the site’s available land area and the facility’s cooling-dominant annual load profile. Compared with a vertical borefield, the horizontal GHX provided a more economical installation while improving long-term thermal performance by dissipating excess process heat more effectively to the surrounding soil.