HEET Library

HEET shares information widely in hopes you’ll use it to develop your own ways to cut emissions. Please let us know what you do with it!

HEET Peer-Reviewed Scientific Publications

July 13, 2022: Inefficient Building Electrification Will Require Massive Buildout of Renewable Energy and Seasonal Energy Storage, Scientific Reports – A study by researchers from HEET, Harvard University and Boston University modeling the efficiency of different electrification technologies.

June 28, 2022: Home is Where the Pipeline Ends: Characterization of Volatile Organic Compounds Present in Natural Gas at the Point of the Residential End User, Environmental Science & Technology – A study by HEET, Harvard, and PSE Healthy Energy finds chemical contamination in natural gas delivered to homes.

March, 2022: An environmental justice analysis of distribution-level natural gas leaks in Massachusetts, USA, Energy Policy – A study by HEET and Salem State University that examined over 26,000 gas leaks in relation to demographic groups. Findings show that low-income and communities of color, as well as renters, limited English-speaking households and adults with lower levels of education, are disproportionately exposed to gas leaks and that leak repairs are comparatively slower for these populations.

May 3, 2021: Repair Failures Call for New Policies to Tackle Leaky Natural Gas Distribution Systems, Environmental Science and Technology

2016 Fugitive methane emissions from leak-prone natural gas distribution infrastructure in urban environments, Environmental Pollution

2015: Direct Measurements Show Decreasing Methane Emissions from Natural Gas Local Distribution Systems in the United States, Environmental Science & Technology (The calculation method in this paper has not held up with further research, however it is important for historical reasons.)

Gas Leaks

HEET’s program to cut emissions from natural gas (methane!) leaks now

Politicians, utilities, and people with noses had recognized that Massachusetts had a problem with gas leaks for some time. HEET resolved to do something about it. In 2015 HEET commenced a program to cut these emissions from natural gas. 

The documents listed below show the progression in HEET’s work. The 2017 Shared Action Plan was a watershed moment when the utilities agreed to have HEET verify Massachusetts gas utilities work to identify and repair natural gas leaks of “significant environmental impact (SEI).”  SEI leaks are the 7% of all the leaks that emit half of the gas by volume. 

Gas Leak Maps

Gas companies in Massachusetts must report their natural gas leaks by location each year. HEET extracts, cleans and maps these data and makes them available both as maps and as geocoded GIS data. Emissions data is approximated for each town using the Lost and Unaccounted for (LAUF) gas calculator.

Salem, Massachusetts has used a copy of data for their town to inform citizens, plan for tree planting, and prepare for fire hazards. Please contact us directly if you would like a copy of map data for your town.

Gas Pipe Replacement (GSEP) Plans 

Gas companies in Massachusetts are currently in the midst of replacing about a quarter of all gas infrastructure through the Gas System Enhancement Plan (GSEP). This program is carried out at a high cost to ratepayers. HEET extracts, cleans and maps these data annually to make them available both as maps and as geocoded GIS data.

Gas companies in Massachusetts are currently in the midst of replacing about a quarter of all the gas infrastructure through Gas System Enhancement Plans (GSEP). They report data on these plans annually.  HEET extracts, cleans and maps this data and makes it available both as zoomable maps and as geocoded GIS data. Please contact us directly if you would like a copy of map data.

Energy Shift

The transition to clean, renewable energy. 

Networked Geothermal

HEET has designed a networked geothermal system that can be installed and owned by gas companies in the street right-of-way, transforming gas utilities from obstacle to accelerator.

  • From Gas to Geo: A video created in-house that explains HEET’s innovative networked geothermal model and the momentum it’s gaining as a clean energy solution for heating and cooling.
  • Buro Happold Feasibility Study full report: HEET commissioned BuroHappold Engineering to assess the feasibility of implementing networked geothermal (previously called GeoMicroDistricts) in Massachusetts.  Creative commons—attribution noncommercial share alike 4.0.
  • HEET Site Selection Checklist: An initial checklist for first networked geothermal installations in Massachusetts 
  • Green Ribbon Commission Video: Clean Heat – The Potential of Networked Geothermal 
  • Learning From the Ground Up: HEET’s proposal to the Department of Energy with plans for how to evaluate upcoming networked geothermal demonstration projects in Massachusetts.
  • HEET Generic RFP for a Networked Geothermal Franchise Agreement: This generic request for proposals (RFP) is intended for a municipality that seeks to offer a networked geothermal franchise  to a third-party designer, installer and owner.

Community Charrettes

HEET is hosts charrettes in an effort to share information and learn from all to make the networked geothermal demonstration projects in Massachusetts and beyond the best they can be. After each charrette, we generate a report with significant takeaways. Reports are shared with Eversource, state regulators, and others.

Charrette #1 Site Selection Report
Charrette #2 Data Collection Report
Charrette #3 Outreach Report

Taste the Future Induction Cooking Parties

A key barrier to transitioning from gas to renewable energy is the stove. Although some residents don’t care about how their home or water is heated, many people believe that cooking with gas is the best way to cook. Luckily, cooking with induction is significantly faster, more precise, and safer!

Library Content Licensed by Creative Commons

The HEET Library holds a variety of work produced by HEET, HEET staff in partnership with others, or work relevant to HEET. Unless otherwise specified, it is licensed under an Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license, which is provided by the nonprofit Creative Commons. This license allows for commercial uses of our work, and it permits adaptations of our work to be iterated upon and shared, as long as it is shared under the license that we have chosen or a similar, compatible license.

If you use or share this work, HEET and any other cited innovators must be acknowledged, as stated in Section 3 of the license agreement. Here is a suggestion for how to cite HEET’s work:

HEET’s peer-reviewed scientific publications are not licensed under creative commons.

This work is licensed under a Creative 
Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 
International License.