Neighborhood Thermal Heating

Canary Media: "Massachusetts kicks off first pilot to shift gas utilities to clean heat." Nationally, methane or 'natural' gas companies have several problems. 'In a report released last month, the Building Decarbonization Coalition tallied up $347billion in utility investments into aging, leaky gas distribution pipelines that have already been ​“locked in” — meaning gas utility customers will have to pay them off over the next 50 years.' And if current plans by gas utilites are not redirected, another $698 billion in future capital costs will be piled onto customers. Gas companies know that about a tenth of US carbon emissions come from burning fossil fuels in buildings. The also know they're under the gun to get away from fossil fuels. In Framingham, today "utility Eversource will flip the switch on the country’s first utility-operated underground thermal energy network...$14 million project includes a one-mile loop of pipes that will connect to houses, apartments, commercial buildings, a community college campus, and a fire station." The pipes will circulate a 'water-and-glycol solution through 88 boreholes that extend hundreds of feet into the earth, fetching the surrounding 55ºF temperature buried beneath the surface and shuttling it up into buildings.' Inside each building a heat pump about double the [wintertime] efficiency of an air-source heat pump will raise the temperature of the sourced warm water to heat the buildings [including domestic hot water]. And cool the buildings in the summer. How does the utility feel about this project? “We as a utility are well positioned to do this project — the pipes are in the warehouse, the skills are in the workforce...now we’re really interested in what the economics are — and how they could allow the utility to scale thermal energy networks beyond a single neighborhood." Does it work? Our house was built with a GSHP five yrs ago, + is the most comfortable place we've ever lived. So, yes, it really works, even when I'm shoveling snow outside in the northwest corner of Washington State.