Boston Harbor Thermal Network Study Picks Salas O'Brien

The firm has 5,000 employees, more than 500 geothermal projects across the U.S. and Canada, and roughly a dozen thermal energy network projects in design or fully implemented, said Brian Urlaub, a Salas O'Brien principal and director of geothermal operations. “We're one of very few firms that has our own on-staff hydrogeologists, so we dive deep into the subsurface geothermal aspects of projects without having to subcontract that work,” Urlaub said.

The technology would capture thermal energy from the waterways and bedrock. Urlaub described thermal energy networks as a “multi-tiered problem-solving technology that can help a multitude of issues across the city of Boston.” He pointed to warming water temperatures that have pushed lobsters north as evidence that the harbor holds excess heat worth capturing. “We need to remove the thermal heat that's being put into these bodies of water. And it's readily available, useful heat,” he said.

The biggest challenge, Urlaub said, will be retrofitting Boston's existing building stock to connect to a clean thermal system. “How do you retrofit the building stock to a clean thermal technology? And what's associated with that is really the cost and how does that get funded.”

The study will also address ownership structure – whether the network would be run by a public-private partnership, a utility, or the city itself. “There's a lot of different nuances to an energy transition that isn't just about the technical feasibility, and that's really also what we're diving into towards the end of the project,” Urlaub said.