August 21, 2025 • 11 mins
New York-based Brightcore Energy is an energy efficiency company working to lower buildings' operating costs through new technology, with a particular expertise in geothermal heating and cooling in dense urban environments. Brightcore's solutions, ranging from geothermal HVAC to efficient lighting to solar energy, help to lower a building's energy use, providing improved net operating income through reduced costs. In addition to design and installation, Brightcore Energy helps partners realize maximum return-on-investment on these projects through strategic planning and in some cases, financial guidance, helping clients access incentives at the national, state, and local levels.
Mike Richter, a former three-time NHL All-Star and 1994 Stanley Cup Champion with the New York Rangers, now serves as Brightcore's president. He speaks with Tim Stenovec, Emily Graffeo and Will Wade on Bloomberg Businessweek Daily.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. You're listening to Bloomberg
BusinessWeek with Carol Masser and Tim Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio.
Brightcore Energy is digging deep for geothermal heating and cooling,
not just geothermal, though, they're also working on energy efficient lighting,
(00:22):
solar energy, really everything to help big buildings use less energy.
Mike Richter joins us. He's president of Brightcore Energy, also
former three time NHL All Star goalie, a nineteen ninety
four Stanley Cup champion with the New York Rangers. He
joins us from Armack, New York. Also with us in
the Bloomberg Interactive Brokers studio. Will Wade, He's energy reporter
(00:42):
for Bloomberg News. Did you play in the NHL?
Speaker 2 (00:45):
I did not aggiscate it at all.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Okay, I can't either. I just want to make sure
before we move forward a full disclosure. Mike Richter's brother,
Joe Richter, works here at Bloomberg for Bloomberg's Research arm
Bloomberg Intelligence. Good to have you both with us. Mike,
I just want to start with you. For people who
know you from your career in the NHL, what was
your transition like going from playing hockey professionally to working
(01:08):
in sustainability with a little stop at Yelle between that, well.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Well, first, thanks for having me on great it was.
It's an adjustment. I think I ended my career about
thirty eight years old back in twenty twenty four, and
you're a little rudderless. You've been given your time, energy
focus to being as good as you can be in
one very specific area. And it is a bit of
(01:36):
an artificial world. And I loved every second of it,
and I had, you know, it was a great gift
to be able to play in the league and in
the you know, New York area in particulars it's really
a special place. But I had a young family at
the time and I was injured, and there was a
decision to make, you know, do you stay within the
confines of that same I guess focus and I've always
(02:00):
had an interest in the environmental world and energy in particular,
and that intersection between finance and energy is a massive one.
It's only grown in the last two decades. So the
stop at Yale was excellent. It helped me kind of
position myself and have a segue from one world to another.
And this is just a great opportunity and a really
(02:22):
worthwhile pursuit.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
So, Mike, tell us about your transition to developing sustainable buildings.
I'm particularly interested in the geothermal. I've seen some projects
do that. It's unique. It's not something we're seeing a
whole lot of yet, but I think we might be
seeing more of it.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Great question. I guess two things. The energy efficiency is
kind of always in vogue, right. If you're using less resources,
you're going to be paying less. And so ultimately our
value proposition is selling savings to commercial industrial buildings. And
there is no better way of heating and cooling and
building then ground source heat pump. And I just want
(03:03):
to make a distinction there geothermal, as we see a
lot of Google's doing some work out there Furvo. Some
really great companies are working on the hot rock geothermal
out west, very deep in the ground, using steam to
turn turbines as you would with a coal power plant
or even a nuclear power plant, and literally creating electrons.
(03:23):
We don't do that. We are simply transferring heat. It's
the idea of a cold beer in your hand on
a warm summer day. There's a really a therm transfer,
a heat transfer from that warm hand to the cold beer.
The beer heats up, your hand cools down. We use
the thermal mass of the Earth to do that, and it
sounds complicated, but it's just physics and the really the
(03:46):
general temperature of the earth doesn't waver a lot once
you go about four feet down, but a little bit.
For astline, the ambient temperatures about fifty five degrees, and
we take advantage of that. If heat pumps just like
you would in your air conditioning unit or more particularly
in your freezer and refrigerator, and instead of blowing that
hot air down on the ground and keeping the cool
(04:08):
air in the box, we just put it through a
closed loop system into the ground. That heat transfer takes
place and you're lifting the air from fifty five degrees
in the winter time to maybe seventy b warm inside,
and in the summertime it's almost free air conditioning. So
we always say the coefficients and performance are as good
as you're going to get right now, And honestly, we
(04:30):
try to be agnostic on what we're offering, and if
there was a better method of heating and cool and building,
we be on it. But this has been going on
in Europe for about two decades, and I'm speaking to
you in our month New York. We have an office
in Brooklyn, but also one in Stockholm, suiting where they
have been leading the charge to allow of the design
and the execution. So we're thrilled by this. And as
(04:50):
you know, energy costs are going up and demand is skyrotting,
so good time to be in this place.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
The geothermal involves digging a lot of holes in the ground.
Is this something you can add to an existing building
or does it have to be when you build the
building new?
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Yeah, and that is a great question. That is the
choke point where it gets quite complicated. You know, eighty
percent of the building stock in a city like New York,
for example, is going to be here in twenty years.
So we've done new builds and we love it. It's virgin territory.
You command, you get the wells stuck in the ground,
you cap them, and you're connect it to the mechanical
(05:25):
system inside, build a building around it and you're done.
How do you go into a building that's existing and
then do that same routine very very difficult. You're space
constrained and you're even sometimes technologically constrained. With what's already
in the building. So that's been the technological transformation that
we've been able to pull across the Atlantic from Europe.
Just like the on gas industry has had such great innovation,
(05:49):
we are really starting to write in the coattails to
that innovation and we are able to go now. The
addressable market is blown up in terms of its scale,
and you can start doing the space constraint places like
an urban setting New York City. It's a great example.
And the retrofit market. We literally have smaller rigs now
(06:09):
that can get into these tight spaces nine and a
half feet of clearance and be able to go five
hundred feet down through the substructure of the building into Manhattan,
shifts the bedrock and it's very stable seismically. The thermal
conductivity is phenomenal. It's a really amazing thing that you
can do, and it actually enhances the strength of the building,
(06:30):
not it doesn't weaken it at all. But you get
a transformation in terms of not only your greenouse gases,
but really, as I said, we're selling savings what you're
paying operationally month to month to the energy companies, so.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
You can put solar on the roof and geo thermal
in the basement and make savings at both ends of
the building.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
You really can actually and these heat pumps are moved
by the power that they use is electricity, and they're very,
very efficient. I think in a place like New York,
there's limited opportunities we can change every light bulb. We're
probably not putting solar because you think of a posted
roof with this massive building below fifty story buildings, for example,
(07:12):
You're just not going to get much power from that
small solar array.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
What do you do?
Speaker 3 (07:16):
And we've been able to actually do retrofits in Manhattan,
right in the heart of Manhattan, and it profoundly changes
the trajectory of that building's ability to afford payments on
the energy and just see an ROI that's really substantial.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
We're speaking with Mike richt, Or, president of Brightcore Energy,
also former three time NHL All Star goalie, nineteen ninety
four Stanley Cup champion with the New York Rangers, also
with us in the Bloomberg Interactive Broker studio. Will Wade,
energy reporter for Bloomberg News.
Speaker 4 (07:46):
Mike talk a little bit about the regulatory environment. There's
been a lot of headlines when it comes to tax
incentives for green energy, is that area helping or hurting
your business?
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Right now?
Speaker 3 (08:00):
There's no question. We're a young industry in North America anyway,
and so the incumbents have an advantage. They have scale,
and that's why you have these incentive structures. The Trump
administration recognized the efficiency that's brought by geothermal and this
Reconciliation bill we came out really well. These massive federal
(08:24):
tax treatments are transferable, so not for profits can use them.
Higher ed houses of worship. Again, we're in the commercial
industrial space and it's really meaningful. You can actually start
to save up to forty and if it's an economic
development zone, fifty percent of the capex of the front
end costs. And it's already established that the operational costs
(08:46):
are there. The problem was you could never get to
them because it's so expensive up front, all those holes
in the ground. That's a meaningful expense that you wouldn't
have to say, with air source heat pumps. What's great
about this is though groundsource heat pumps are two times
as efficient as air source, so four times efficient is
often what we're replacing. So there's really meaningful savings if
(09:06):
you just unlock that cappex up front. Now you can
have third party finance, of course, but the big thing
is we've maintained those incentives and they're really significant, and
that's at the federal level. These things are stackable, so
you have federal incentives, have individual states have better or worse,
and even different utility zones. And the utilities understand the
(09:28):
squeeze that they're in because there's so much demand coming
with AI and data center. So what do you do
with that? You look toward efficiency and if I can
make say the Empire State Building more efficient than it
once was and the ex use of forty percent less electrons,
that's a meaningful diminishment for kan ed in this case
and kind of territory. So they are they've been incredibly
(09:49):
creative and supportive, so we're in a very very good
spot with that.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
The upfront cost though, with this technology are pretty high
when you think about the capex involved, how do you
make the numbers work and sort of especially compared in
places where energy isn't that expensive.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
Well, thankfully this is where my goaltending background helps. I
leave it to the finance department and they've been incredible. Look,
you can't lie with these numbers. Problem you that's the problem, right,
But the physics have to work, and so we do
a no go to go evaluation right up front, understanding
how what the thermal load of the building is, and how
(10:26):
many boreholes we can get in there, and how much
is going to cost per linear foot and all those
things come into play. Excuse me, but in the end,
with these incentives, none of the stackable incentives, it can
often be less than what the incumbent was going to
be to replace anyway, So we stack up very well
against air source heat pumps and you know, natural gas
(10:48):
speakers and whatnot. And it's it's case by case you
have to do that evaluation. And truly we don't expect
people to say, hey, I want to pay extra for
being green or sustainable. No one knows what that is.
They do understand I'm saving operationally and there's a return
on investment. And these things are really robust, right. They're
not just floodproof and fire resistant because they are literally
(11:09):
underground and capped, but they have a life expectancy of
seventy five to one hundred years. So I sid only
go use car salesman sometimes when you give that pitch,
but there's a lot that lends itself to really suggesting
these things should be the kind of the shape of
where buildings are going in the next five to ten years.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Mike and I have to leave it there, but thanks
so much for joining us this afternoon. We love talking,
We love talking about solutions to the energy challenges that
our world is facing right now. Mike Richter, president of
Brightcore Energy. Also former three times NHL All Star goalie,
a champion of the Stanley Cup nineteen ninety four with
the New York Rangers. Also a big naked Will Wade
(11:48):
jumping in Bloomberg News Energy reporter. Check out Will's reporting
on the Bloomberg Terminal and at Bloomberg dot com
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. You're listening to Bloomberg
BusinessWeek with Carol Masser and Tim Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio.
Brightcore Energy is digging deep for geothermal heating and cooling,
not just geothermal, though, they're also working on energy efficient lighting,
(00:22):
solar energy, really everything to help big buildings use less energy.
Mike Richter joins us. He's president of Brightcore Energy, also
former three time NHL All Star goalie, a nineteen ninety
four Stanley Cup champion with the New York Rangers. He
joins us from Armack, New York. Also with us in
the Bloomberg Interactive Brokers studio. Will Wade, He's energy reporter
(00:42):
for Bloomberg News. Did you play in the NHL?
Speaker 2 (00:45):
I did not aggiscate it at all.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Okay, I can't either. I just want to make sure
before we move forward a full disclosure. Mike Richter's brother,
Joe Richter, works here at Bloomberg for Bloomberg's Research arm
Bloomberg Intelligence. Good to have you both with us. Mike,
I just want to start with you. For people who
know you from your career in the NHL, what was
your transition like going from playing hockey professionally to working
(01:08):
in sustainability with a little stop at Yelle between that, well.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Well, first, thanks for having me on great it was.
It's an adjustment. I think I ended my career about
thirty eight years old back in twenty twenty four, and
you're a little rudderless. You've been given your time, energy
focus to being as good as you can be in
one very specific area. And it is a bit of
(01:36):
an artificial world. And I loved every second of it,
and I had, you know, it was a great gift
to be able to play in the league and in
the you know, New York area in particulars it's really
a special place. But I had a young family at
the time and I was injured, and there was a
decision to make, you know, do you stay within the
confines of that same I guess focus and I've always
(02:00):
had an interest in the environmental world and energy in particular,
and that intersection between finance and energy is a massive one.
It's only grown in the last two decades. So the
stop at Yale was excellent. It helped me kind of
position myself and have a segue from one world to another.
And this is just a great opportunity and a really
(02:22):
worthwhile pursuit.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
So, Mike, tell us about your transition to developing sustainable buildings.
I'm particularly interested in the geothermal. I've seen some projects
do that. It's unique. It's not something we're seeing a
whole lot of yet, but I think we might be
seeing more of it.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Great question. I guess two things. The energy efficiency is
kind of always in vogue, right. If you're using less resources,
you're going to be paying less. And so ultimately our
value proposition is selling savings to commercial industrial buildings. And
there is no better way of heating and cooling and
building then ground source heat pump. And I just want
(03:03):
to make a distinction there geothermal, as we see a
lot of Google's doing some work out there Furvo. Some
really great companies are working on the hot rock geothermal
out west, very deep in the ground, using steam to
turn turbines as you would with a coal power plant
or even a nuclear power plant, and literally creating electrons.
(03:23):
We don't do that. We are simply transferring heat. It's
the idea of a cold beer in your hand on
a warm summer day. There's a really a therm transfer,
a heat transfer from that warm hand to the cold beer.
The beer heats up, your hand cools down. We use
the thermal mass of the Earth to do that, and it
sounds complicated, but it's just physics and the really the
(03:46):
general temperature of the earth doesn't waver a lot once
you go about four feet down, but a little bit.
For astline, the ambient temperatures about fifty five degrees, and
we take advantage of that. If heat pumps just like
you would in your air conditioning unit or more particularly
in your freezer and refrigerator, and instead of blowing that
hot air down on the ground and keeping the cool
(04:08):
air in the box, we just put it through a
closed loop system into the ground. That heat transfer takes
place and you're lifting the air from fifty five degrees
in the winter time to maybe seventy b warm inside,
and in the summertime it's almost free air conditioning. So
we always say the coefficients and performance are as good
as you're going to get right now, And honestly, we
(04:30):
try to be agnostic on what we're offering, and if
there was a better method of heating and cool and building,
we be on it. But this has been going on
in Europe for about two decades, and I'm speaking to
you in our month New York. We have an office
in Brooklyn, but also one in Stockholm, suiting where they
have been leading the charge to allow of the design
and the execution. So we're thrilled by this. And as
(04:50):
you know, energy costs are going up and demand is skyrotting,
so good time to be in this place.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
The geothermal involves digging a lot of holes in the ground.
Is this something you can add to an existing building
or does it have to be when you build the
building new?
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Yeah, and that is a great question. That is the
choke point where it gets quite complicated. You know, eighty
percent of the building stock in a city like New York,
for example, is going to be here in twenty years.
So we've done new builds and we love it. It's virgin territory.
You command, you get the wells stuck in the ground,
you cap them, and you're connect it to the mechanical
(05:25):
system inside, build a building around it and you're done.
How do you go into a building that's existing and
then do that same routine very very difficult. You're space
constrained and you're even sometimes technologically constrained. With what's already
in the building. So that's been the technological transformation that
we've been able to pull across the Atlantic from Europe.
Just like the on gas industry has had such great innovation,
(05:49):
we are really starting to write in the coattails to
that innovation and we are able to go now. The
addressable market is blown up in terms of its scale,
and you can start doing the space constraint places like
an urban setting New York City. It's a great example.
And the retrofit market. We literally have smaller rigs now
(06:09):
that can get into these tight spaces nine and a
half feet of clearance and be able to go five
hundred feet down through the substructure of the building into Manhattan,
shifts the bedrock and it's very stable seismically. The thermal
conductivity is phenomenal. It's a really amazing thing that you
can do, and it actually enhances the strength of the building,
(06:30):
not it doesn't weaken it at all. But you get
a transformation in terms of not only your greenouse gases,
but really, as I said, we're selling savings what you're
paying operationally month to month to the energy companies, so.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
You can put solar on the roof and geo thermal
in the basement and make savings at both ends of
the building.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
You really can actually and these heat pumps are moved
by the power that they use is electricity, and they're very,
very efficient. I think in a place like New York,
there's limited opportunities we can change every light bulb. We're
probably not putting solar because you think of a posted
roof with this massive building below fifty story buildings, for example,
(07:12):
You're just not going to get much power from that
small solar array.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
What do you do?
Speaker 3 (07:16):
And we've been able to actually do retrofits in Manhattan,
right in the heart of Manhattan, and it profoundly changes
the trajectory of that building's ability to afford payments on
the energy and just see an ROI that's really substantial.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
We're speaking with Mike richt, Or, president of Brightcore Energy,
also former three time NHL All Star goalie, nineteen ninety
four Stanley Cup champion with the New York Rangers, also
with us in the Bloomberg Interactive Broker studio. Will Wade,
energy reporter for Bloomberg News.
Speaker 4 (07:46):
Mike talk a little bit about the regulatory environment. There's
been a lot of headlines when it comes to tax
incentives for green energy, is that area helping or hurting
your business?
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Right now?
Speaker 3 (08:00):
There's no question. We're a young industry in North America anyway,
and so the incumbents have an advantage. They have scale,
and that's why you have these incentive structures. The Trump
administration recognized the efficiency that's brought by geothermal and this
Reconciliation bill we came out really well. These massive federal
(08:24):
tax treatments are transferable, so not for profits can use them.
Higher ed houses of worship. Again, we're in the commercial
industrial space and it's really meaningful. You can actually start
to save up to forty and if it's an economic
development zone, fifty percent of the capex of the front
end costs. And it's already established that the operational costs
(08:46):
are there. The problem was you could never get to
them because it's so expensive up front, all those holes
in the ground. That's a meaningful expense that you wouldn't
have to say, with air source heat pumps. What's great
about this is though groundsource heat pumps are two times
as efficient as air source, so four times efficient is
often what we're replacing. So there's really meaningful savings if
(09:06):
you just unlock that cappex up front. Now you can
have third party finance, of course, but the big thing
is we've maintained those incentives and they're really significant, and
that's at the federal level. These things are stackable, so
you have federal incentives, have individual states have better or worse,
and even different utility zones. And the utilities understand the
(09:28):
squeeze that they're in because there's so much demand coming
with AI and data center. So what do you do
with that? You look toward efficiency and if I can
make say the Empire State Building more efficient than it
once was and the ex use of forty percent less electrons,
that's a meaningful diminishment for kan ed in this case
and kind of territory. So they are they've been incredibly
(09:49):
creative and supportive, so we're in a very very good
spot with that.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
The upfront cost though, with this technology are pretty high
when you think about the capex involved, how do you
make the numbers work and sort of especially compared in
places where energy isn't that expensive.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
Well, thankfully this is where my goaltending background helps. I
leave it to the finance department and they've been incredible. Look,
you can't lie with these numbers. Problem you that's the problem, right,
But the physics have to work, and so we do
a no go to go evaluation right up front, understanding
how what the thermal load of the building is, and how
(10:26):
many boreholes we can get in there, and how much
is going to cost per linear foot and all those
things come into play. Excuse me, but in the end,
with these incentives, none of the stackable incentives, it can
often be less than what the incumbent was going to
be to replace anyway, So we stack up very well
against air source heat pumps and you know, natural gas
(10:48):
speakers and whatnot. And it's it's case by case you
have to do that evaluation. And truly we don't expect
people to say, hey, I want to pay extra for
being green or sustainable. No one knows what that is.
They do understand I'm saving operationally and there's a return
on investment. And these things are really robust, right. They're
not just floodproof and fire resistant because they are literally
(11:09):
underground and capped, but they have a life expectancy of
seventy five to one hundred years. So I sid only
go use car salesman sometimes when you give that pitch,
but there's a lot that lends itself to really suggesting
these things should be the kind of the shape of
where buildings are going in the next five to ten years.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Mike and I have to leave it there, but thanks
so much for joining us this afternoon. We love talking,
We love talking about solutions to the energy challenges that
our world is facing right now. Mike Richter, president of
Brightcore Energy. Also former three times NHL All Star goalie,
a champion of the Stanley Cup nineteen ninety four with
the New York Rangers. Also a big naked Will Wade
(11:48):
jumping in Bloomberg News Energy reporter. Check out Will's reporting
on the Bloomberg Terminal and at Bloomberg dot com
Hosts And Creators
Tim Stenovec
Carol Massar
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