The sustainable energy utility that Ann Arborites approved last November is already starting to bare fruit for Ann Arbor.
A press release by the City just before Christmas announced a $10 million grant from the federal Department of Energy’s Geothermal Technologies Office to establish a community geothermal heating and cooling network to both bring down energy costs and reduce the carbon footprint for one of the city’s most low-income areas. It is the second phase of a long standing partnership between the federal energy department; the Community Action Network at the Bryant Community Center, a non-profit dedicated to helping Ann Arbor’s lowest income neighborhoods and families to remain in the ever-more expensive city and live with dignity; and the City of Ann Arbor, as part of its A2ZERO program to transition the city into environmental sustainability.
“The project is more than 10 million …the project itself includes some funding on the front end to finalize the design – we have an 80 to 90 percent finalized design, but we have to get it across the finish line,” Missy Stults, the sustainablity and innovations director of the city of Ann Arbor, said. The grant will go to “finalizing the permitting, borehole drilling for the system in Arbor Oaks Park; funding to run the lateral lines in the right of way and connections to actual homes; and funding for replacing indoor units from a furnace to heat pump and air handler.”
This project is designed to do two things at once – massively reduce energy costs for some of Ann Arbor’s least wealthy citizens to allow them the financial breathing space to get ahead and help the wider Ann Arbor community achieve carbon neutrality. Work is already underway to design, acquire the necessary permits and implement the infrastructure necessary to provide an opportunity for each one of the 262 homes in Bryant Park – situated between I-94 and the city line with Pittsfield Township – with a geothermal-led heat and cooling system, with solar power and improved weatherization opportunities too.
The system will also apply to the elementary school and community center. This is more energy efficient than a traditional central heating system by 61% according to the DoE.
The Bryant Park CAN executive director, Derrick Miller, said in a press release, “A regional geothermal district has the power to transform under-resourced communities like Bryant by delivering affordable, clean energy and dramatically reducing their carbon footprint. This groundbreaking solution is more than just an energy upgrade — it’s a game changer that empowers residents, creates jobs and paves the way for a brighter, more sustainable future.”
How much this will really change things for the community depends on how many people sign up for what. You can sign up for a geothermal pump, weatherization improvements, or solar, or all three.
Participating at all is voluntary and will depend on how much residents want installed in their property, or how much their landlords will allow. Half of Bryant Park’s homes are rental properties, according to the city. Renters can participate in SEU programs only if both they and the city get formal written permission from their landlord.
Once the heat pumps are installed, they can then be connected to a geothermal community loop (see maps) – the geothermal equivalent to an electric microgrid to redistribute both heat and power to where demand is needed. That way, a home where the adults work elsewhere during the day won’t need to waste money and carbon emissions while they are gone and homes where people work from home, or are retired, can still access the heat and power they need.
While heat pumps will be put under every participating house, the geothermal field will rely on another 334 wells, which will each be going 500 feet underground to achieve the scale necessary to make the heating and cooling project feasible. The plan is to put 232 of them underneath Arbor Oaks Park and the remaining 102 underneath the playground behind Bryant Elementary School. A series of six foot diameter pipes will then redistribute what it produces to and from the surrounding houses. The loop will also connect to the industrial park south of Bryant Park and east of Stone School Road.
Once finished you shouldn’t be able to even tell that the geothermal part of the project is there by just looking around the neighborhood. The solar panels should be prominent on rooftops, should Bryant Park residents choose them, but the only evidence of the geothermal system will be a small maintenance shed occasionally used by maintenance crews, somewhere between the school and the park. The precise location for this future outbuilding has not been decided upon.
Geothermal projects can be of various sizes and scales. Ann Arbor was the largest of five grants awarded by the GTO, the others being in another $9.9 million for Chicago, $7.8 million in Framingham, Massachusetts, $7 million to the University of Oklahoma and $3 million to Hinesburg, Vermont.
The grant was done in conjunction with IMEG and UA Local 190, a union representing “Plumbers, Pipefitters, Service Technicians and Gas Distribution Workers” according to the press release, emphasizing the jobs that this project will create. While the press release did not specify how many construction jobs this will support, the outgoing administration has made a big deal of the sheer number of jobs transitioning to a sustainable economy provides.
RELATED: Ann Arbor Says “Yes” to a Sustainable Energy Utility
This project is also intended as a financial boon for Ann Arbor’s lowest income residents by tackling a part of the affordability crisis never mentioned as much as food or housing – energy costs. The DoE defines an “energy burden” as a household who has to spend six percent or more of their income on energy costs, a definition of poverty. The city has found that around a third of Bryant Park’s households “energy cost burdened”, with families paying anywhere from $1,300 to $1,800 per year on energy; some families having to pay up to 30 percent of their income to keep the lights, heating and air conditioning on.
Michigan households paid an average of $19.26 per kilowatt-hour last October, Michigan non-industrial businesses paid $13.50, industrial businesses paid $8.42 and transportation costs $14.25 according to the Energy Information Administration, the official statistical body of the DoE. Residential and industrial power cost slightly more compared to 2023, and slightly less for businesses and transportation. Compare that to North Dakotans, who paid the least at $12.08, $6.83, and $7.15, respectively (no data on transportation costs) – and the most – Hawaiians, whose costs per kilowatt hour across all sectors ranges from $38.60 to $41.27. The fact that Michigan’s power costs are above the national average across the board is what made the project appealing for this part of Ann Arbor, according to Stults.
“What’s really cool is that because the SEU passed, we’re going to be able to offer to all of the homes, because the SEU allows us to go get financing to build out. That’s why I can’t tell you what amount of the money is going where because this allows us to go get financing to fund the entire system,” Stults explained. “Those who have already signed up will be first in line because we already have all of their energy data. Everyone in the neighborhood will be able to opt into the system, but it may have to be phased. Everyone will be able to sign up, but you may not be year one of construction, you may be year two of construction as the loop comes online.”
According to a slide show explaining the project that the city made, this project could save city residents 2.6 percent of energy costs just by switching to geothermal. But if that was added with weatherization and solar schemes, savings could go as high as 76.8 percent.
This project is only available to Bryant Park residents. It is, again, strictly voluntary, as are all SEU programs, and will only get going if and when enough residents express interest both geographically and by sheer numbers. If one household is too far away from the loop then they won’t be able to join, but as long as enough homes are interested in joining, and are close enough together, they can be part of the program. But if every household agrees to sign up to the whole geothermal, weatherization and solar proposals, the city estimates that total greenhouse gas emissions from Bryant Park would tank by 75 percent.
Signing up interested residents will be the next step. The city will need to get everyone interested to sign up by next March in order to meet a DoE deadline. If and when enough residents do, the next steps will be to finalize permitting and find contractors to bid on the installation of the geothermal field and the pump house. They will also select a contractor for the neighborhood distribution system. The plan is that by October next year, they will be able to activate the neighborhood distribution loop.
Bryant Park is also a test case for the city. It is a case of theory being put into practice and the city has acknowledged that they are going to be learning from doing here but fully plan on taking what they learn to similar projects throughout Ann Arbor, neighborhood by neighborhood, as part of its A2ZERO decarbonization efforts.
Ann Arbor voted to try to achieve carbon neutrality with the A2ZERO plan – to either emit no carbon at all or to establish enough carbon sink effects to mitigate whatever carbon the city’s economy and society does admit – in order to fight climate change, by the end of this decade. It then voted by a 78.63 percent margin in the 2024 to set up the SEU – a supplemental utility that goes alongside the power provided by the for profit semi-monopoly Detroit Thomas Edison, to – as DTE Energy’s own decarbonization timeline stretches 20 years past Ann Arbor’s self-imposed deadline.
“We are humbled and honored that the U.S. Department of Energy has selected Ann Arbor’s project for implementation support,” Ann Arbor Mayor Christopher Taylor said in the press release. “For over three years, the city, Community Action Network and, most importantly, the residents of Bryant have been working to make Bryant one of the most sustainable neighborhoods in America, and with this award from the Department of Energy, that vision is now one giant step closer to reality.”
Drew Saunders is a freelance business and environmental journalist who grew up just outside of Ann Arbor. He covers local business developments, embraces his foodie side with reviews restaurants, obsesses over Michigan's environmental state, loves movies, and feels spoiled by the music he gets to review for Ann Arbor!
