Solar heat pump serving 38 blocks... wow!

Bonnie (my wife) has been so supportive of me during my time in grad school that she even finds research materials for me. Studio has turned me into a production-automaton and I rarely have a chance to look up from my work for less than the bare-necessities and I'm WAY behind in the news cycle. Luckily, Bonnnie occasionally serves up nutritional little tid-bits like this from time to time.

Sunnyside school is focus of neighborhood energy plan City of Portland - Office of Sustainable Development

The developer behind the North Pearl District energy plan is hatching a new idea to heat and cool as many as 500 homes in Southeast Portland’s Sunnyside neighborhood with energy from the earth.

John Sorenson’s proposed community-owned Sunnyside Neighborhood Energy utility, SunNE, would be centered at Sunnyside Environmental School, where a central plant would replace the school’s 1917 oil-burning boiler with a solar-powered geothermal heat pump. The plant would then connect to a network of underground pipes circulating through the surrounding 38 blocks.

"This concept has never happened – a district energy plan centered on a public school..."