CLIMATE SOLUTION: MASSACHUSETTS TOWN EXPERIMENTS WITH COMMUNITY HEATING AND COOLING

Jennifer and Eric Mauchan live in a Cape Codstyle house in Framingham, Massachusetts that they’ve been cooling with five air conditioners.

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In the summer, the electric bill for the 2,600-square-foot home can be $200.

In the winter, heating with natural gas is often more than $300 a month, even with the temperature set at 65 degrees Fahrenheit (18 degrees Celsius).

“My mom, when she was alive, wouldn’t come to our house in the wintertime,” because it was too cold, Eric Mauchan said.

Their neighborhood is now part of a pilot climate solution that connects 37 homes and businesses with a highly efficient, underground heating and cooling system. Even taking into account that several of the buildings will be switching from natural gas to electricity, people are expected to see their electric bills drop by 20% on average. It’s a model some experts say can be scaled up and replicated elsewhere.

“As soon as they told me about it, I bought in 100%,” said Jennifer Mauchan, who works in finance, remembering her first meeting with representatives from Eversource, the gas and electric utility that installed the system. “From a financial perspective, I thought that it was a very viable option for us.” She cited lower greenhouse gases that cause climate change as an important factor in the decision.

Gina Richard, owner of Corner Cabinet, a kitchen and bath cabinet showroom in Framingham, said she felt “pretty lucky” to be part of the project. She currently uses two air conditioners and two heaters and looks forward to replacing all that with a single system. Richard said she was told she could see her winter heating bill of $900-1,000 go down by as much as a third, which she said would be “amazing.”