Asked the City Manager to work with the Community Development Department and other relevant departments to fund and implement the grant proposal submitted to DOE GTO to design and implement a community-scale geothermal heating and cooling system in Cambridge

Project Overview

We are pleased to hereby submit an application to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Community Geothermal Heating and Cooling Design and Deployment funding opportunity. The Cambridge Community Geothermal Pilot will deliver clean, renewable thermal energy to a diverse range of buildings in Cambridge, in line with Cambridge’s Net Zero Action Plan goals for clean energy and electrification.

Background Our proposal brings together a coalition of five organizations that each bring unique expertise to the development of the Cambridge Community Geothermal Pilot: • The City of Cambridge has long been committed to addressing the causes and impacts of climate change, with a Net Zero Action Plan1 that is designed to bring community- wide building greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050.

In 2018, the City completed a Low Carbon Energy Supply Strategy2 that identified target areas for clean, district-level energy systems. More recently, in 2021, the City actively participated in community geothermal charrettes held by an area nonprofit, in order to identify strategies for networked geothermal in Massachusetts.

The City also brings significant experience with geothermal to this project: the City has renovated several public schools and fire stations in recent years to include ground- source systems as the primary or sole heating and cooling system. The King Open School Complex, re-opened in 2021, utilizes 190 geothermal wells and achieves Net Zero readiness.

Even as far back as 2004, the City renovated City Hall Annex to include three geothermal wells that provide the entirety of the heating and cooling needed. • The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is the prime Department of Energy National Laboratory focused on renewable energy research. The geothermal group within NREL studies various aspects of geothermal energy including reservoir modeling, surface plant design, market analysis, nationwide potential, regulatory aspects, etc.

As part of this project, NREL will take the lead on design and analysis of the geothermal- based district energy system, including simulation and sizing the borehole field and modeling the mass and heat transfer flows withing the district energy network. • The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC) is a state economic development agency dedicated to accelerating the growth of the clean energy sector across the Commonwealth to spur job creation, deliver statewide environmental benefits, and secure long-term economic growth for the people of Massachusetts.

MassCEC works to increase the adoption of clean energy while driving down costs and delivering financial, environmental, and economic development benefits to energy users and utility customers across the state. Through a variety of programs and initiatives, MassCEC

1 Cambridge Net Zero Action Plan. https://www.cambridgema.gov/CDD/Projects/Climate/netzerotaskforce 2 Cambridge Low Carbon Energy Supply Strategy. https://www.cambridgema.gov/CDD/climateandenergy/ climatechangeplanning/lowcarbonenergysupplystrategy

incorporates the principles of diversity, equity, inclusion, and environmental justice to promote the equitable distribution of the health and economic benefits of clean energy and support a diverse and inclusive clean energy industry. Specifically, the workforce team at MassCEC is focused on building capacity across the statewide clean energy workforce, with an emphasis on programs that: 1.

Provide residents of Environmental Justice neighborhoods and low-income communities with quality job training aligned to sustainable wage in-demand career pathways, wraparound services, and placement support. 2. Help current and former Fossil Fuel Workers transition to promising careers in the clean energy industry by deploying transferrable skills and building new skills for relevant emerging technologies. 3. Support the development, certification, and growth of clean energy Minority and

Women-Owned Business Enterprises (MWBEs)

4. Connect clean energy employers to future worker pipelines through internship and on-the-job training opportunities. 5. Provide detailed information about the state and regional clean energy industry and emerging workforce needs. • Founded in 2015, Brightcore Energy is a Delaware Limited Liability Company with 40+ employees and growing. We are headquartered in Armonk, NY with a satellite office in Brooklyn, NY.

Brightcore is focused on delivering turn-key energy efficiency and renewable energy solutions to large commercial, institutional and municipal clients, primarily in the Northeast. Brightcore provides project design, development, implementation, funding, operations, maintenance, and monitoring for a wide range of technologies including geothermal heating and cooling solutions, LED lighting, building controls, solar PV, battery storage, and EV charging.

Successful deployment of energy efficiency and renewable energy projects requires expertise across multiple disciplines: technology, design, procurement, permitting, project management, construction, finance, legal, and asset management. The staff has decades of experience across each of these disciplines, enabling us to optimize and deliver projects to the customers of the highest quality, on time, and on budget.

As part of Brightcore’s delivery, leverages deep financial expertise, together with Brightcore’s institutional capital base, to enable customers to pursue projects with $0 investment and immediate savings. The Brightcore management team has spent over a decade financing and investing in clean energy projects (through Brightcore as well as a predecessor company, Smart Energy Capital), having deployed and financed over $500 million of on-site clean energy projects.

Brightcore Energy has an experienced geothermal team that provides preliminary assessments, feasibility studies, planning, design, drilling, installation, monitoring, and

maintenance of commercial and community closed-loop geothermal systems. Brightcore Energy’s geothermal group is led by Dave Hermantin, P.E. who has worked as a designer and construction administrator since 2003 for over 100 commercial geothermal projects throughout the New York metropolitan area and New England. Garrett Gobillot (Senior Geothermal Project Engineer) has years of experience designing, constructing, and operating geothermal systems with P.W. Grosser Consulting Inc before joining Brightcore.

The team is experienced in installing geothermal systems in a variety of geologies along the Northeast. We provide a unique drilling capability for urban/suburban environments, called UrbanGeo, that uses specialized drilling equipment that can drill inside existing buildings, at inclined boreholes, and capable of Borehole Thermal Energy Storage (BTES).