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Geothermal Energy and Decarbonized Heating
We're committed to decarbonizing the heating sector by bringing new, innovative technologies to our customers.
Why Decarbonize?
Decarbonization is the process of lowering your carbon footprint by reducing your greenhouse gas emissions.
We’re committed to finding innovative solutions like geothermal technology that will help us meet the decarbonization goals for our customers while continuing to provide our natural gas customers with safe, affordable, reliable service every day.
We’re collaborating with diverse stakeholders to evaluate pathways to clean fuel sources considering factors such as environmental benefits, reliability, costs to customers, equity and environmental justice issues, and the need to train our workforce to support these new resources.
Explore Decarbonization
Geothermal Energy
A geothermal system uses water, wells, piping and pumps to pull heat out of the ground to warm buildings in winter, and pump heat from those buildings back into the ground in summer to cool them using heat pump technology.
Heat pumps are an energy-efficient alternative to fossil fuel heating systems, which efficiently use electricity to heat in the winter and cool in the summer.
This system is significantly more efficient than traditional heating systems, and could be a great way to bring decarbonized heating and cooling to our customers. This energy can be used to heat and cool indoor spaces and produce hot water in conjunction with ground source heat pumps.
Framingham pilot project
On June 12, 2023, we hosted state and local leaders in the environmental justice community of Framingham for the groundbreaking of our first-of-its-kind networked geothermal pilot.
The event marked the start of construction on this innovative project, which is expected to be in service in the summer of 2024.
Once in service, the pilot is intended to run through two heating and cooling seasons (24 months). The planned route consists of 37 buildings, 32 of which are residential homes.
The pilot will help us understand the potential for offering larger geothermal programs as an alternative energy source across our service territory.
After nearly a year of construction, the system is turned on, circulating fluid, and ready to serve approximately 135 residential and commercial customers with ground-sourced heating and cooling.
“This is going to be the start of great things, not just here in Massachusetts, but you’ll see it across the country,” said Chairman, President, and CEO Joe Nolan at the ceremony.
Additional speakers at the event were Secretary of the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs for Massachusetts Rebecca Tepper, Massachusetts State Senator Michael Barrett, who co-chairs the Joint Legislative Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy, and Zeyneb Magavi, Executive Director of HEET.
The pilot will help us understand the potential for offering larger geothermal programs as an alternative energy source across our service territory.
Meeting Demand For Heat Pumps
Customers are increasingly exploring heat pumps as an energy efficient alternative to fossil fuel heating systems, and we are expanding our incentives and streamlining our customer experience to help meet that demand.
We offer some of the highest rebates in the country to support the installation of heat pumps. The Energy Efficiency team provided rebates for over 18,700 residential heat pumps in 2023, more than double the number in 2022.
To help customers make informed decisions and access a list of qualified heating and cooling contractors, we collaborated with the other Sponsors of Mass Save® and Energize ConnecticutSM to launch a Heat Pump Installer Network (HPIN), which helps provide high-quality installation of heat pumps for both residential and commercial customers.
In 2023, the Mass Save HPIN achieved the milestone of enrolling over 1,000 contractors, ending the year with more than 1,600 enrolled.