by Jennifer and Eric Mauchan live in a Cape Cod-style home in Framingham, Massachusetts that is cooled by five air conditioners. In the summer, the electric bill for the 2,600 square foot house can be $200.
In the winter, heating with natural gas is often more than $300 per month, even with the temperature set at 65 degrees Fahrenheit (18 degrees Celsius).
“My mom, when she was alive, wouldn’t come to our house in the winter,” because it was too cold, Eric Mauchan said.
But starting Tuesday, their neighborhood will be part of a pilot climate solution that connects 37 homes and businesses to a high-efficiency underground heating and cooling system. Even taking into account that some of the buildings will be switching from natural gas to electricity, it is expected that their electricity bills will decrease by an average of 20%. It’s a model that some experts say can be scaled up and replicated elsewhere.
“As soon as they told me about it, I bought 100%,” said Jennifer Mauchan, who works in finance, recalling her first meeting with representatives from Eversource, the gas and electric utility. to install the system. “Financially, I thought it was a very viable option for us.” She cited lower greenhouse gases caused by climate change as an important factor in the decision.
Gina Richard, owner of Corner Cabinet, a kitchen and bath cabinet showroom in Framingham, said she felt “lucky” to be a part of the project. She currently uses two air conditioners and two heaters and is looking forward to replacing one. Richard said she was told she would see her $900-1,000 winter heating bill drop by as much as a third, which she said would be “amazing”.
Framingham’s system consists of a giant underground loop filled with water and antifreeze, similar to the way gas is delivered to several homes in the neighborhood. Water in the loop absorbs heat from the ground, which stays at about 55 degrees Fahrenheit (13 degrees Celsius) year-round.
Households that provide heat and air conditioning have their own heat pump unit, installed by the utility. These take heat from the loop, raise the temperature further, and release that heat into the homes as warm air. For air conditioning, heat is removed from the home or business and released into the Earth or transported to the next home.
Energy sharing works best when some buildings are drawing heat and another needs it, the way a grocery store needs to keep its cases refrigerated even in winter.
There are other networked geothermal projects in the US, including the Texas community in Whisper Valley and Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. Eversource says it’s the first utility-led installation in the U.S. If it works, that could be significant because an individual homeowner might not be able to do the digging and drilling needed to create a neighborhood system.
Currently, homeowners can purchase individual air source heat pumps, which are popular and efficient. Or they can drill for even more expensive and efficient ground source heat pumps. Incentives, such as those in the Inflation Reduction Act or local utilities, help lower the price of these, but the final cost can still be in the thousands of dollars.
Framingham beat out other communities that applied to Eversource to be pilot sites. The city 20 minutes west of Boston is surrounded by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as well as firms such as Thermo Fisher Scientific, Pfizer and Novartis. Eric Mauchan said so much advanced technology and a state law requiring greenhouse gas emissions to go to zero by 2050 helped keep the public happy.
Nikki Bruno, vice president of clean technologies for Eversource, cited the state’s emissions law as the reason for the pilot program. It was also an opportunity from a decarbonization perspective,” she said, as Eversource has its own net zero goal.
“We’re thinking, okay, we do this pilot project now, how can we scale this up to a sustainable business model, to a sustainable program to be offered in more places?” she said.
Jack DiEnna, founder of the National & International Geothermal Initiative, a coalition of industry professionals, said utilities are seeing pressure to address climate change and incentives to do so. Ground source heat pumps are very efficient, reduce the demand for electricity on the grid and can be installed in regions that are outside the gas lines. They also cool homes and do not emit much in the way of climate pollution compared to traditional heaters and air conditioners.
There is also an equity issue that concerns some in the climate and energy sector. If people with the resources disconnect their natural gas, it could have unequal consequences for people.
It means “the people who can least afford to pay for this gas system, this exhaust gas system,” said Ania Camargo, manager of thermal energy networks at the Building Decarbonization Coalition, a non-profit working to eliminate fossil fuels from buildings.
“One of the reasons I’m advocating that utilities be a big part of the solution is that it’s a way to make sure we can do this for everyone.”
Back at the Mauchans’ house, the couple laugh about the fixes they’ve been making to their old heating system. “I was so concerned about how much it would cost us if the temperature went up to 70 degrees in the winter, oh God,” Jennifer said of letting the house cool down in the winter.
They hope their new heat pump will change things. “I mean, we’ll keep our house 71 degrees year-round,” Eric said.
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