Clean geothermal energy to heat and cool West Woodlawn homes

You can heat homes with gas, propane, oil or electricity.

Or you can make use of the virtually endless supply of clean energy that lies right beneath your feet.

The South Side nonprofit Blacks in Green is pursuing the latter option, with a plan for a multibuilding geothermal system that will tap steady, year-round underground temperatures of about 55 degrees.

In step one of the project, workers will send plastic pipes 450 feet into the ground beneath Chicago alleys. The pipes, which circulate a fluid that absorbs and releases heat, will loop back to up to 69 buildings in a four-block area of West Woodlawn, powering heating and central air.

The $10.8 million project is one of only five community geothermal heating plans nationwide selected for full funding by the Department of Energy in December, and it is moving forward at a time of growing interest in neighborhood geothermal among states, utilities and energy experts.

“It will be an example for the entire country,” said Tugce Baser, an associate professor of civil engineering at Saint Louis University and a member of the Blacks in Green project team.

It’s unclear whether the project will be affected by President Donald Trump’s attempts to freeze funding for clean energy programs, but Blacks in Green founder and CEO Naomi Davis said her team is assuming the best and continuing its work on the project.

Multibuilding geothermal heating and cooling has been used for decades, often at college campuses and military complexes, with documented cost and energy savings.

But now interest in systems spanning existing neighborhoods is growing, due to factors such as ambitious state clean energy goals, growing demand for electricity and the slow pace at which new power sources are being added to the grid.

At the New England utility Eversource, which launched the nation’s first utility-run neighborhood geothermal pilot project in Framingham, Massachusetts, last year, clean technologies manager Eric Bosworth said dozens of utilities from across the country have called with questions.

Interest is growing on the state level as well. Since 2021, seven states have passed laws allowing or requiring utilities to develop neighborhood geothermal pilot projects, according to the Building Decarbonization Coalition.

“For me, it’s a no-brainer,” Baser said of geothermal, in which heat from the core of the earth moves toward the surface, constantly replenishing the heat that’s used to warm a building.

“(The heat) is there, it’s constant and it’s available any time you want it. Why not use it?” Baser said.

The Blacks in Green pilot was selected for $10.8 million in Department of Energy funding before Trump took office and moved to freeze funding for many clean energy projects.

Davis declined to discuss the federal funding controversy but said, “We’re moving ahead, come what may, because we’re dedicated to doing the work.”

Physics or magic?

For Blacks in Green, the geothermal project is part of a larger vision for West Woodlawn, a majority Black neighborhood on the South Side.

“We are creating what we call a Sustainable Square Mile, which is where African American neighbors can walk to work, walk to shop, walk to learn and walk to play,” said Davis, an attorney and activist who has lived in the neighborhood since 2010.

“We own the businesses in the walkable village. We own the land. And we live a conservation lifestyle,” she said.

Locally owned clean energy is part of that vision, and when the Department of Energy made its community geothermal grants available, Blacks in Green applied.

“This is a very unique opportunity to have a community-owned utility, essentially,” Davis said. There was also the chance to create good jobs in the neighborhood, lower participants’ utility bills — and even reach children at neighborhood elementary schools.

“How do we get into those classrooms?” Davis mused. “How do we get into those children’s heads and hearts and get them excited about a career in energy?”