“As we transition to a carbon-free future, this is going to be the answer,” said Eversource CEO Joe Nolan at a ceremony on Monday celebrating the project. “We save energy, we reduce peoples’ carbon footprint and we have a better, cleaner environment going forward.”

“The idea for the pilot project came from HEET (Home Energy Efficiency Team), a nonprofit focused on climate solutions that originally started working with the utility to try to reduce methane emissions from gas leaks. But as they looked at the bigger challenge—the fact that ultimately the world will have to transition away from gas to meet climate goals—they started thinking about how basic infrastructure also needed to change at a fundamental level.”

“’I would say it’s not just being watched nationally, it’s being watched globally,’ Zeyneb Magavi, the co-founder of the Massachusetts-based clean energy nonprofit HEET, told me. Magavi and her partner, Audrey Schulman, dreamed up the idea of transforming gas utilities into geothermal utilities several years ago, and were instrumental in getting Eversource to consider the project.”

Magavi praised the collaboration, saying that in a hyperpolarized world, HEET and gas companies should be enemies."I think the thing even more than the technology that we are celebrating today is a rewriting of the story and how it's going to end," she said. "Instead of just breaking ground on this project, what's happened by all working together across so many different groups is that we're breaking ground on a new clean energy industry."

“We all know that our state and our region face significant climate challenges and our geothermal project in Framingham is a great example of how we’ll build that clean energy future in addition to our investments in technologies like solar, battery storage, electric vehicle charging station and more,” said Eversource President, CEO and Chairman Joe Nolan.

“The bill would authorize the state’s gas utilities to replace gas pipes with electric heat pumps and networked geothermal systems, and allow gas companies to sell electrified home appliances. While National Grid and Eversource Energy are currently collaborating with the Home Energy Efficiency Team (HEET), a clean energy nonprofit, on networked geothermal pilot projects in the towns of Lowell and Framingham, they currently are limited in their ability to expand their programs to meet demand outside of the pilot projects.”