A Groundbreaking Geothermal Heating and Cooling Network Saves This Colorado College Money and Water

The discussions started roughly a decade ago, when an account manager at Xcel Energy, the electricity and gas utility provider, expressed confusion, officials at Colorado Mesa University recalled.

A public school on the state’s remote western slope, Colorado Mesa had recently doubled in size, but its energy usage had hardly budged as it began installing an advanced geothermal heating and cooling system.

Since its geothermal buildout began in 2008, the university has saved more than $15 million in energy costs, money it has passed on to students through lower tuition and more scholarship funding.

Hundreds of boreholes drilled approximately 500 feet beneath athletic fields and parking lots tap low-temperature thermal energy to help heat and cool campus buildings in what is now one of the largest such networks in the nation.

The system’s high efficiency—later confirmed in an independent analysis by Xcel —means campus buildings require about half as much energy for heating and cooling as similar buildings, allowing the university to expand its campus without a corresponding increase in energy usage.

There are now more than twenty utility-led thermal energy networks under development or completed nationwide, according to the Building Decarbonization Coalition. Xcel Energy is currently working on three thermal energy network projects, two in Colorado and one in Minnesota, a spokesperson said in a written statement.