Now utilities from around the globe are looking to Bruno’s team for geothermal guidance. Climate advocates are working with Eversource and the U.S. Dept. of Energy in December pledged $7.8 million to an advocacy group, HEET, partnering with Eversource and Framingham to advance the project’s second phase. The funding, yet to be finalized at press time, would help double the existing pilot. “We’ve become this leader in the nation on that front,” Bruno says. “But, in a collegial way, a humble way, because we’re saying, ‘We’re trying to figure it out, too,’ and it fostered this open dynamic.”

Bruno is also working toward a model that allows such networks to operate without relying on subsidies, tax credits and DOE funding that she fears could dissipate during the Trump administration. “The goal is to make it sustainable on its own, by doing the hard commercial math to see how we can set this up so we could move this forward at a cost-effective rate, a cost-effective capital investment for businesses, as soon as we can, so we’re not beholden to some of those funding opportunities or tax credits,” she says.

Eversource was well positioned for the project, not just because of its skill in installing underground pipeline, but also because working with different types of building owners requires infrastructure such as billing systems. It also knew how to navigate permitting and siting while bringing various stakeholders to the table. Bruno says her team’s “technical knowledge” helps it manage and execute projects, along with its “emotional IQ and leadership capabilities” around customer and community dynamics.  “There’s a lot of translatable skills that we already have,” she says. “It’s just a different technology.”

Newcomer to the field now is sought for advice by utilities, public officials and other stakeholders.  
Photo courtesy Eversource

Bruno synthesizes information and communicates it “internally and externally in ways that people can understand,” Daniel Flaherty, a mechanical engineer at CDM Smith, the project’s design engineer of record. “Building energy transition infrastructure requires bringing many perspectives and opinions together to agree on a way forward, and ultimately her success in doing that is what has helped this project get built.”

Moving forward, Eversource says it will work to determine if utility-scale geothermal networks can “feasibly and affordably” be expanded or replicated in other “densely populated and mixed-use areas of New England” after it finishes analyzing the network’s performance during two heating and cooling seasons. 

The pilot will help determine if such a system can replace legacy energy sources—such as natural gas, air-source heat pumps or delivered fuels like heating oil and propane—or be used in tandem with existing heating and cooling systems.

“We cannot fail this project,” Bruno says. “We have to succeed by any and all efforts, because this is really an inflection point for what the gas company can be—a thermal company in the future.”