Community Geothermal: Planning and Design of a Heating and Cooling System in Framingham, Massachusetts

Description

These reports, plans, and drawings review the achievements of Home Energy Efficiency Team (HEET) and its partners to plan and design a network of interconnected ground-source heat pump systems, or geothermal network, in an area encompassing multiple environmental justice (EJ) neighborhoods in the City of Framingham, MA. The materials provided in this dataset include, a) stakeholder and design best practices, b) study on optimal method to interconnect geothermal loops, c) guidelines for monitoring and metering, d) operations and maintenance plans, e) permitting guidelines and f) 10-day driller tutorial curriculum. These materials can guide the efficient and ethical design of future geothermal networks nationwide. The capacity of the system is estimated at 217 tons and is designed to provide 100% of heating and cooling needs for the buildings connected to the loop. In this project, 80 boreholes are used as the main thermal resources, the distribution system (or loop) consists of 0.61 miles of an 8-inch single-pipe at ambient temperature, with the capacity to connect 44 buildings, including 13 apartment buildings from the Framingham Housing Authority, one transitional home, one school building and 29 single family homes. While Framingham already has a geothermal network loop that is currently in the commissioning stage, our proposed project is unique because it is the first utility-led expansion loop (2nd loop) project that will connect to an adjacent existing geothermal loop (1st loop) in a pre-existing neighborhood. Both the 1st and 2nd loops are being installed, owned and operated by Eversource Energy, the utility Deployment Partner.

Resources

Name Format Description Link
33 Permitting plan for geothermal networks in Framingham, Massachusetts . https://gdr.openei.org/files/1672/Framingham%20Geothermal%20Network%20Permitting%20Plan.pdf
33 Design Drawings for a Geothermal Network in Framingham, Massachusetts. The system will provide heating and cooling for the buildings connected to the geothermal loop. https://gdr.openei.org/files/1672/Framingham_Geothermal_Network_Design_Drawings_For_GDR.pdf
33 This report presents the environmental justice (EJ) considerations that should be taken into account when developing geothermal energy networks. https://gdr.openei.org/files/1672/Framingham%20Geothermal%20Network%20Environmental%20Justice%20Considerations.pdf
33 This report describes the operations and maintenance (O&M) strategy for geothermal networks as developed for the Flagg Loop in Framingham, MA. https://gdr.openei.org/files/1672/Framingham%20Operations%20and%20Maintenance%20Strategy%20for%20Geothermal%20Networks.pdf
33 This report describes the metering and monitoring strategy for geothermal networks as developed for the Flagg Loop in Framingham, MA. https://gdr.openei.org/files/1672/Framingham%20Geothermal%20Network%20Monitoring%20and%20Metering%20Plan%20%281%29.pdf
33 This report describes the stakeholder considerations that should be taken into account in the planning, design and deployment of geothermal networks. This report summarizes key learnings from the operational Concord Loop that is operational and adjacent to the Flagg Loop. The stakeholder recommendations described in the next section can form the basis for best practices on how to design, build and deploy geothermal networks and are applicable to any other geothermal network from the pre-feasibility to the construction stage. https://gdr.openei.org/files/1672/Framingham%20Geothermal%20Network%20Stakeholder%20Design%20Considerations%20%282%29.pdf

Tags

  • heating
  • report
  • framingham
  • expansion-loop
  • maintenance
  • heet
  • design
  • environmental-justice
  • community
  • commgeo
  • operations
  • cooling
  • plan
  • monitoring
  • interconnected-loops
  • metering
  • permitting
  • ground-source-heat-pump
  • massachusetts
  • geothermal
  • gshp
  • energy
  • stakeholder

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