FILE - Groundwater squirts up during drilling for a geothermal heating and cooling system at a home in White Plains, N.Y., May 8, 2023. A community in Framingham, Mass., will soon become one of the first in the U.S. to be heated with geothermal connected to each other. Jennifer and Eric Mauchan live in a Cape Cod-style house in Framingham, Massachusetts that they’ve been cooling with five air conditioners. In the summer, the electric bill for the 2,600-square-foot home can be $200.
But beginning Tuesday, their neighborhood will be part of a pilot climate solution that connects 37 homes and businesses with a highly-efficient, underground heating and cooling system. Even taking into account that several of the buildings will be switching from natural gas to electricity, people are expected to see their electric bills drop by 20% on average. It’s a model some experts say can be scaled up and replicated elsewhere.
The energy sharing works best when some buildings are drawing on heat while another needs it, the way a grocery store needs to keep its cases refrigerated even in winter. Framingham beat out other communities that applied to Eversource to become pilot sites. The city 20 minutes west of Boston is surrounded by Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, plus firms like Thermo Fisher Scientific, Pfizer and Novartis. Eric Mauchan said the proximity of so much advanced technology and a state law requiring that greenhouse gas emissions ramp down to zero by 2050 helped make the community receptive.
Jack DiEnna, founder of the Geothermal National & International Initiative, an alliance of industry professionals, said utilities are seeing pressure to address climate change plus incentives to do so. Ground source heat pumps are highly efficient, reduce the electricity demand on the grid and can be installed in regions beyond the reach of gas lines. They also cool homes and release very little in the way of climate pollution compared to traditional heaters and air conditioners.