HEET’s new Director of Environmental Justice Community Outreach, Kai Palmer-Dunning, will be leading efforts to improve Boston air quality and respiratory health as a part of HEET’s EJAir (Environmental Justice Air) program. EJAir focuses on reducing emissions and energy bills for environmental justice communities in Boston through energy efficiency retrofits available through the Mass Save…
Each month, HEET hosts a Community Charrette covering a variety of topics related to networked geothermal demonstration projects. Enterprising gas companies—keen to explore cost efficient replacements for increasingly ineffective and outdated gas system business models—have already committed to $30 million in demonstration installations in Massachusetts (Eversource Gas and Merrimack Valley Installations) and New York (NYSERDA,…
HEET is pioneering a radical transformation of gas utilities into non-emitting thermal utilities, transitioning them away from delivering fossil fuels to instead delivering heating and cooling through networked ground source heat pumps. The model utilizes underground pipes in the gas utility’s right-of-way in the street to deliver ambient-temperature water to buildings. Heat pumps in each…
We are excited to announce that HEET Founder and Co-Executive Director, Audrey Schulman, won the Advanced Energy Group’s Washington July Speaker Challenge on Grid Modernization. Audrey, along with four other speakers, presented pressing challenges to achieving Washington D.C.’s carbon and equity goals. HEET’s winning obstacle statement focused on the need for a data-based transition plan…
Most of you have heard by now about the GeoMicroDistrict, the HEET proposal for heating and cooling our homes and businesses with networked geothermal systems. This proposal is moving from an idea to a reality with many proposed pilots. Drilling geothermal boreholes in England Eversource Gas has requested permission from the Department of Public Utilities…
With all three big gas utilities in the state likely to pilot geothermal, we are looking for potential sites. Do you want it on your street? Do you know of a developer who might be interested? Do you want us to talk to your town? Let us know here. This map shows all the locations…
In July, just a few days before the legislative session was scheduled to end, the Massachusetts House passed its own climate bill, with proposed amendments to the Senate Next Generation Climate Policy. Since the legislative session was extended, both bills are now in conference committee to see what final law will emerge. The house bill…
When the coronavirus struck Massachusetts, Ana Javier of the Merrimack Valley Project identified families in Lawrence who were under economic stress and had trouble accessing food due to language barriers or other concerns. Ana worked with her community and the employees and Board of HEET to get food delivered. After the first delivery, Ana received…
HEET received a national sustainability award! Together with Buro Happold Engineering, we won the American Planning Association (APA) Sustainable Communities Division award for the networked geothermal feasibility study. The study explores whether replacing segments of the aging natural gas infrastructure in Massachusetts with ground source heat pump technology can meet heating and cooling needs at…