John Thomas

The Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport recently installed the largest geothermal HVAC system of any airport without major disruption to their everyday functions. This accomplishment includes benefits beyond energy reduction—a more comfortable environment for travelers, more outside air filtered into the terminal, an 80% carbon footprint reduction, $340,000 heating and cooling savings annually, less maintenance required and room for future system expansion. It’s also a lesson to all on how decarbonization, energy efficiency and sustainability-focused infrastructure upgrades generate significant cost savings. We were able to help the airport make infrastructure decisions that met their present and future needs, improved their indoor air quality, prioritized environmental sustainability, increased resiliency and integrated ESG initiatives. We also identified which funding opportunities were best suited to their goals and would provide the most dollars—making sustainability affordable by lowering the first cost of high-performance systems. These strategies can be applied to a wide variety of industries, not just airports. Our goal is to help show the audience at the 2024 AEE World Conference that sustainable, convenient and efficient HVAC systems are a great investment, great for the environment and easier to implement than they might think.