HEET Co-Executive Director gives a TED Talk—and invites a gas utility president on stage
A few months ago, HEET Co-Executive Director Zeyneb Magavi was asked to give a TEDxBoston Talk as part of a series on planetary stewardship. She said yes.
This November, she stepped in front of a live audience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to described her idea for a gas to networked geothermal (NetGeo) transition. She explained HEET’s unusual approach of building trust with utilities that has given Massachusetts the first permissioned gas utility networked geothermal installation. And in the last few minutes of her talk, Zeyneb demonstrated this trust by inviting Bill Akley, president of Eversource Gas, to join her on stage and share his perspective. Unscripted.
Bill shared how HEET first began meeting with Eversource Gas to create a strategy to find and fix the most environmentally harmful gas leaks in our streets, work that is ongoing through the Shared Action Plan.
The Department of Public Utilities, Bill said, had never before seen a plan jointly submitted by gas utilities and a climate nonprofit. Since then, utilities and others have been calling him for advice on how to do this same methane emissions reduction work. Bill shared how the trust built through the Shared Action Plan paved the way for the Eversource's groundbreaking networked geothermal project in Framingham, Massachusetts.
We’re firm believers that working together across boundaries, always while clearly communicating where we stand and why, is the only way to achieve an energy transition at the speed and scale we need. We also appreciate how challenging it is to do that.
But despite the challenges, momentum around geothermal networks is building across the country, from utilities to climate groups to lawmakers. To build even more momentum, we’re creating a map of people interested in networked geothermal. If you might want a networked geothermal system built in your community in the future, add your name and share the map with your neighbors!
