Geothermal networks are quietly becoming a practical replacement for gas grids. Here’s how the Framingham project works, why it’s getting funded, and where it fits in green tech.
Most companies get heating and cooling wrong.
They pour money into gas pipes, oversized chillers, and rooftop units that lock them into volatile fuel prices and high emissions for decades. Meanwhile, a different kind of utility is quietly taking shape under a Massachusetts neighborhood—and it just got an $8.6 million boost from the U.S. Department of Energy.
This matters because it shows where green technology is actually heading in 2025: toward shared, underground geothermal networks that can replace gas distribution, stabilize energy costs, and fit even into a politically hostile climate for clean energy.
In this post, I’ll break down what’s happening in Framingham, why the Trump administration is still funding geothermal while slashing other renewables, and how businesses, cities, and campuses can turn this model into a practical, financeable path off fossil gas.
What Just Happened in Framingham—and Why It’s a Big Deal
The Framingham, Massachusetts project is the first utility-led geothermal heating and cooling network in the U.S., and it’s about to double in size.
- The Department of Energy approved an $8.6 million grant to expand the network.
- The project is led by Eversource Energy (a major gas and electric utility), the city of Framingham, and the nonprofit HEET.
- The existing network serves about 140 residential and commercial customers and will add roughly 140 more with this new funding.
Here’s the thing about geothermal networks: they don’t just make individual buildings more efficient—they replace the logic of the gas grid with a clean, shared thermal grid.
In Framingham, dozens of boreholes drilled several hundred feet underground tap into stable 55°F earth temperatures. Water circulates through a buried loop, and electric heat pumps in each building use that constant temperature as a baseline for both heating and cooling.
“What we’re witnessing is the birth of a new utility.” – Zeyneb Magavi, HEET
For the Green Technology series, this project is a perfect example of how infrastructure + data + electrification can create low-carbon systems that are also good business.
How Geothermal Networks Work (and Why Utilities Like Them)
Geothermal networks are simple in principle: share the ground instead of burning fuel.
The basic architecture
A district-scale geothermal network typically includes:
- Borefields: Dozens or hundreds of vertical boreholes, 300–800 feet deep, filled with piping and grout.
- Shared loop: A closed water loop connecting the borefield to buildings in a neighborhood, campus, or commercial district.
- Heat pumps: Small electric heat pumps in each building that add or remove heat from the water loop to reach the desired indoor temperature.
- Smart controls: Sensors and software that monitor temperatures, flows, and loads across the network.
Because the earth sits at around 50–60°F in many U.S. regions year-round, heat pumps don’t have to work nearly as hard as air-source units that are pulling heat from 10°F winter air or rejecting it to 95°F summer air.
Result:
- 2–4x higher efficiency than traditional electric resistance heat
- 30–70% lower heating energy use than standard gas systems in many cases
- Strong alignment with building electrification and decarbonization plans
Why utilities are paying attention
Utilities like Eversource see geothermal networks as a replacement business model for gas:
- They already know how to build and maintain buried networks.
- They can recover costs through regulated rates, same as gas infrastructure.
- They reduce exposure to gas price volatility and stranded asset risk.
- They can keep customer relationships while transitioning away from fossil fuels.
In Framingham’s expansion, Eversource expects to roughly double capacity at about half the cost of the initial build. That’s not a minor tweak—that’s classic network economics showing up under our feet.
As geothermal networks add more buildings with different schedules and uses, their thermal loads start to balance out:
- Offices might need more cooling during the day.
- Apartments might need more heating in the evening.
- Retail might swing with foot traffic and seasons.
Those differences reduce how many new boreholes you need per added customer. The bigger the network, the more efficient each marginal connection becomes.
Why Geothermal Is Surviving Trump-Era Clean Energy Cuts
Here’s the political twist: this expansion is happening while the Trump administration is cutting billions in other clean energy grants and tax credits, especially for wind, solar, and EVs.
Yet geothermal is still getting funded and, in some cases, even protected.
The policy context in late 2025
Three key moves define the landscape:
- DOE grant finalized: The geothermal grant was first approved under the Biden administration but only finalized on Sept. 30, 2025, and announced under Trump.
- Tax credit “loophole”: The One Big Beautiful Bill Act aggressively phases out tax credits for wind, solar, and EVs but leaves geothermal heating and cooling tax credits from the Inflation Reduction Act largely intact.
- DOE reorganization: The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy was eliminated, but geothermal was placed inside a new Hydrocarbons and Geothermal Energy Office—paired with fossil resources, but still standing.
That tells you two things:
- Geothermal has bipartisan appeal, partly because it’s underground, infrastructure-heavy, and compatible with existing utility and drilling industries.
- If you’re planning long-term decarbonization, geothermal is one of the safer bets in a politically unstable policy environment.
For companies and cities looking at 20–40 year asset lives, that stability really matters.
Business Case: Where Geothermal Networks Make the Most Sense
Not every neighborhood should rush to drill borefields tomorrow. But in certain contexts, geothermal networks are already a strong business case—and AI and smart controls are making them even more compelling.
Ideal use cases today
From what I’ve seen and from projects like Framingham, St. Paul, and large corporate campuses in Wisconsin, geothermal networks shine in:
- Dense suburbs and mixed-use districts where many buildings can share a single loop
- Campuses (universities, hospitals, corporate HQs) with large, long-term owners
- Gas system transition areas where utilities want to retire or avoid replacing aging gas mains
- New developments where developers can plan thermal infrastructure from day one
The economics improve when you:
- Avoid major gas main replacement projects
- Combine heating and cooling loads across varied building types
- Use existing pump houses and controls instead of duplicating equipment, like Eversource plans in Framingham
How AI and smart controls raise the ceiling
In the context of green technology, the real unlock is when you pair geothermal networks with AI-driven energy management:
- Predictive controls can forecast heating and cooling loads by building, hour, and season.
- Thermal storage optimization can store heat or “cold” in the ground when electricity is cheap and clean.
- Fault detection can spot underperforming heat pumps or circulation issues early, lowering O&M costs.
A smart geothermal network isn’t just pipes and pumps—it’s a data-driven thermal platform that can:
- Prioritize buildings based on comfort, criticality, or tariff signals
- Shift load to avoid peak grid prices or capacity charges
- Provide grid services by modulating heat pump usage in response to renewables output
If you’re in energy management, facilities, or sustainability leadership, this is where the opportunity is: turn a sunk cost (heating and cooling) into a controllable, optimizable asset.
Practical Steps for Cities, Campuses, and Businesses
If you’re looking at the Framingham story and wondering, “What would it take to do something similar here?”, here’s a concrete roadmap.
1. Map thermal demand and gas risk
Start with data you probably already have:
- Current gas and electric use by building
- Peak heating and cooling loads (or estimates)
- Locations of aging gas mains or high maintenance areas
From there, identify clusters where:
- Multiple buildings sit near each other
- There’s a mix of uses (residential, office, retail, municipal)
- The gas system is costly to maintain or upgrade
These are your prime geothermal network candidates.
2. Build the coalition early
Framingham worked because a utility, a city, and a nonprofit aligned around the same project. For your region, you’ll likely need:
- The local electric and gas utility
- City or county government
- Large anchor customers (campuses, hospitals, industrial sites)
- A technical partner (engineering firm or geothermal developer)
I’ve found that these projects stall when they’re framed as “one more building upgrade.” They move when they’re framed as replacing a piece of the gas grid and creating a new utility asset.
3. Use pilots to prove performance
The Framingham team isn’t just expanding the network; they’re using federal funds to monitor performance and costs in detail. You should do the same:
- Track system COP (coefficient of performance) across seasons
- Compare customer bills before vs. after connection
- Monitor comfort complaints and reliability metrics
- Quantify avoided gas main replacement costs
Those numbers turn a climate story into a regulator-ready rate case.
4. Design for scale from day one
The smartest geothermal networks are designed with phased expansion in mind:
- Oversize headers and distribution piping slightly to handle more buildings later.
- Place borefields where they won’t conflict with future development.
- Use controls that can manage 50 buildings now and 500 later.
This is exactly how Framingham is cutting expansion costs—reusing pumping and control infrastructure instead of replicating it.
5. Align with incentives while they still exist
Even under a hostile federal administration, geothermal tax credits and some grants remain available. Combine those with:
- State-level clean heat standards or building performance standards
- Utility decarbonization mandates
- Green bonds or infrastructure funding tools
The policy winds will shift again. A well-timed geothermal network lets you lock in low-carbon, low-operating-cost infrastructure before incentives erode further.
Where Geothermal Fits in the Bigger Green Technology Story
Within this Green Technology series, geothermal networks are a critical missing piece. Solar, wind, and batteries tackle electrons. Geothermal networks tackle heat, which is responsible for a huge share of building emissions and gas demand.
The reality? It’s simpler than most decarbonization roadmaps make it look:
- Electrify end uses like heating and cooling with high-efficiency heat pumps.
- Connect those heat pumps to shared, low-temperature infrastructure in the ground.
- Control everything with data-driven, AI-enhanced systems that keep comfort high and costs predictable.
Framingham isn’t a one-off curiosity. It’s an early template for how utilities can move from gas grids to thermal grids, supported by both red and blue policy regimes, and powered by smarter software on top.
If you’re planning energy strategy for a city, a utility, or a large portfolio of buildings, the question isn’t whether geothermal networks will scale. They already are. The question is whether you want to be buying gas mains in 2040—or owning part of the next generation of energy infrastructure buried quietly under your streets.
If your organization is exploring green technology or needs a roadmap off fossil heating, geothermal networks are one of the most practical places to start. Now is the time to run the numbers, build the coalition, and see where the ground under your feet can do more of the work.