The District 200 Board of Education approved a preliminary plan to use geothermal energy to heat and cool Project 2, the new athletic wing that will be built starting in summer 2024. 

Geothermal energy is a renewable resource that relies on heat generated from the earth. The plan under consideration at Oak Park and River Forest High School involves geothermal well fields, which send pipes underground. Liquid running through the pipes travels back to a pump that sends air heated or cooled by the earth into the building.

At its Jan. 25 meeting, the board decided to move ahead with a version of the plan presented by Veregy, LLC, an energy consulting firm based in Phoenix. Veregy conducted tests to determine the best location for the project and determined that it would need to go under the football field to produce enough energy. That would mean tearing up football turf three years earlier than planned. 

The geothermal plan would help OPRF meet its sustainability goals, according to Karin Sullivan, executive director of communications at OPRF. “The district has included some really ambitious goals in the recently developed sustainability policy, such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 100% of 2010 levels by 2050,” she wrote in an email. “The proposed geothermal system—which is a carbon-neutral source of energy—would be able to meet all the heating and cooling needs of Project 2. This would be a huge step toward meeting the requirements of the sustainability policy.”

Now that the board has approved the scope of the project, the next step is to negotiate a contract with Veregy. According to a newsletter sent by the board following the Jan. 25 meeting, the budget is between $9.6 and $10.3 million, depending on whether the project maximizes the full tonnage out of the football field. 

Those costs may be offset by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which offers rebates for geothermal energy and mechanicals (plumbing, heating and cooling, for example). Altogether, these rebates could save the district about $7.4 million. The district also estimates that geothermal energy will save about $6 million over a 30-year life cycle.