Residents living near Dartmouth’s Athletics District can learn about plans to construct the first geo-exchange borefield on a varsity soccer practice field at a public meeting set for 7 p.m. on Aug. 14 at the RWB Community Center on Lebanon Street in Hanover.
Construction on Chase Field #4, scheduled to begin at the end of October, will involve drilling about 180 wells, or boreholes, each about 800 feet deep, on the field. The boreholes will eventually be connected to a pump plant, also likely to be built in the Athletics District, that will move water around campus to heat and cool buildings.
This geo-exchange system, powered by electricity, will eventually take the place of Dartmouth’s aging fossil-fuel-powered steam-heat system and is a centerpiece of President Sian Leah Beilock’s pledge to decarbonize campus operations by 60% by 2030 and 100% by 2050. The work is part of the Dartmouth Climate Collaborative, which will include faculty research on a variety of climate-related topics and use of the campus as a living laboratory for students and scholars taking on complex sustainability challenges.
Work on other parts of the system has been going on this summer, with new distribution piping being installed in trenches around campus, including on East Wheelock Street. Similar piping work will also take place in the Athletics District and, eventually, throughout campus.
