US Department of Energy
Depictions of geothermal temperature control in both warm and cool months.
Yale is soon to test out a new way of heating and cooling campus buildings without burning fossil fuels: by drawing from the earth’s temperature 850 feet below “Science Hill.”
Architects working with the university presented that update to the East Rock Community Management Team on Monday evening, which met in a hybrid format on Zoom and in the Trowbridge Environmental Center in College Woods Park.
They announced plans to drill 190 geothermal bores beneath the northeastern part of the university’s “Science Hill,” a cluster of laboratory buildings between the lower parts of Whitney Avenue and Prospect Street.
Specifically, the geothermal system would be clustered beneath 170 – 272 Whitney Ave., where Yale is planning to build a new Physical Sciences and Engineering Building.
As architect Bradford Crowley of the firm Ballinger described to East Rock residents, geothermal energy systems “use the relatively stable temperatures from the earth itself” to regulate indoor temperatures.
The bores, about six inches in diameter each, would reach as far as 850 feet below ground. They would circulate fluid, which would either heat up or cool down depending on the difference between the above-ground weather and the ground itself. The fluid’s new temperature could then be leveraged to change the indoor climate of Yale buildings.
As a low-carbon energy system, “this is going to have a significant impact in reducing fossil fuels” at Yale, which has pledged to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions by 2035, said Crowley.
CMT Chair Elena Grewal asked Crowley how long the geothermal bores are expected to last.
“More than 50 years” or “even longer,” Crowley predicted.
Tom Messer asked whether the construction process will negatively impact nearby buildings.
“We are taking sound measures … We don’t expect a lot of noise transfer,” responded engineer Bryan D’Orlando. The bores themselves will be located entirely on campus.
According to Crowley, the City Plan Commission is slated to review these plans in March. Construction is expected to begin this summer and last through the summer of 2025.
Nearby in Wallingford, the U.S. Department of Energy is funding the construction of a geothermal heat pump that will serve a proposed affordable housing development, one of 11 projects receiving such funding in the country. The New York Times reported earlier this year that a number of other colleges and university across the country are tapping into geothermal energy as well, from Ivy League institutions like Princeton to public universities like Indiana’s Ball State.
Thomas Breen Photo
Geothermal system slated for the ground beneath this site.
The hybrid East Rock CMT meeting.
Laura did a nice job with this story. But ground-based geothermal is hardly "a new way of heating and cooling". It has been around longer than I have been. According to the U S. Department of Energy, about 50,000 such systems are installed each year.