By Elizabeth Wescoe, Legal Intern, Pace Energy and Climate Center
Since 2021, the Pace Energy and Climate Center (the Center) has issued 10 regulatory and permitting reviews for feasibility studies developed by Endurant Energy, a leading distributed energy infrastructure developer, in support of thermal energy network (TEN) projects. The Center’s regulatory and permitting reviews advise the developer on how to establish district geothermal energy systems while navigating a complex legal system. Geothermal energy technologies produce heating and cooling for buildings by using a heat transfer system that absorbs thermal energy from the Earth’s subsurface, sewer systems, or surface water.[1]
The Center hopes that its participation in TEN feasibility studies will contribute to the advancement of thermal technologies as an important renewable energy source. The Center’s first nine regulatory and permitting reviews assessed sites in New York State. The latest report, which was finished in January 2025, looks beyond New York State borders and into the Western United States. This expansion represents the technology’s growth in popularity, as well as the Center’s success in aiding developers in building advanced, clean energy infrastructure.
In New York, the feasibility study reports have supported projects that were made possible through the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) via the closed Community Heat Pump Systems program (PON 4614).[2] The program has provided funding to “over 50 project sites, that have explored a wide range of technical solutions and business models for thermal energy networks.”[3] Each report has assessed the site’s areas of concern, applicable statutes and permitting requirements, anticipated challenges, potential business models, recommended steps, and authorities with jurisdiction over the project. The reports also address the challenges faced by developers, considering that regulations in New York State are in development.
The Center’s reports have contributed to New York district geothermal projects in Erie County (Silo City), the Bronx (the Peninsula), Queens (Innovation QNS), New Rochelle (Pratt Landing), Flushing Bay (Willets Point), Gowanus, Brooklyn (Gowanus Green), East New York, Brooklyn (Spring Creek Towers), Long Island City (Ravenswood), and Mount Vernon (20 South 2nd Square). With each of these locations came varying local ordinances, policies, and geographic hurdles, making each analysis unique to the area.
The Center’s most recent work is in support of a project site located in the Western United States. This location has a completely different set of applicable state and local laws, most of which focus on the conservation of water in an arid environment. The Center conducted a structured assessment of the Western site akin to its work on the New York projects, by looking at key issues with the location, environmental regulations, recommended steps, and jurisdictional authorities. Unlike New York, the Western State does have some regulation regarding geothermal energy, but it still lacks a comprehensive set of laws to guide developers, making the Center’s feasibility study report an important contribution to the geothermal project.
The Pace Energy and Climate Center’s work on these studies, in collaboration with Endurant Energy has helped to advance the development of district geothermal energy projects by addressing complex regulatory and site-specific issues. The Center’s contribution is particularly important given potential future changes to the regulatory environment for these geothermal projects.
[1] NYSERDA, Overcoming Legal and Regulatory Barriers to District Geothermal in New York State, Final Report (2021).
[2] Community Heat Pump Systems (PON 4614) Projects, https://www.nyserda.ny.gov/All-Programs/Large-Scale-Thermal/Winners (last visited Mar. 8, 2025).
[3] Id.
By Tamika Thomas, Legal Intern, Pace Energy and Climate Center
Going Green with a Charrette
The Pace Energy and Climate Center (PECC), in partnership with the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), recently conducted the New York State Thermal Energy Network (TEN) Charrette. The Charette included thirteen (13) workshops with municipalities that addressed topics ranging from the introduction of TEN system technologies to potential business models for TENs that New York State municipalities should consider.
These workshops began in April 2023 and focused on fostering dialogues aimed at developing a shared set of ideas regarding regulatory planning, business model development, and workforce participation. The series of workshops continued until October 2024, engaging participants that included municipal council members, mayors and supervisors, engineers, sustainability directors, and project managers with expert presentations and discussions on what is necessary to facilitate geothermal energy projects at scale. The cooperative approach of this initiative was rooted in the municipalities’ interest in pursuing low-carbon heating and cooling solutions that would offer equitable energy solutions and take advantage of the place-based nature of the technology.
NYSERDA and PECC will produce a Municipal Reference Manual on Thermal Energy Networks to carry forward the lessons learned from the process and sessions to help local governments promote district thermal systems.
Thermal Energy Networks
TENs are large-scale thermal energy systems that use heat pumps to exchange thermal energy between one or more buildings and thermal resources like the ground, surface water, wastewater, and waste heat to provide heating, cooling, and hot water.. They serve as a renewable energy source with the potential to function effectively as a connected heating and cooling system, providing numerous significant benefits. Commonly implemented internationally and by many college, hospital, and institutional campuses across the U.S., these systems can significantly reduce fossil fuel consumption, decrease financial burdens on consumers, and boost community resilience.
The Municipal Reference Manual on Thermal Energy Networks that PECC is drafting in cooperation with NYSERDA will help advance TENs across New York State.
Further Thermal Energy Roll Out
TENs are currently governed by various existing regulatory frameworks, as discussed in the forthcoming Municipal Reference Manual. Municipalities hold the authority to regulate land use, including zoning and permits for geothermal systems. This allows them to incorporate environmental standards and identify potential barriers to implementing TENs. Furthermore, municipalities can define TENs within their zoning codes to promote public land use for TENs development.
The Municipal Reference Manual, being developed by PECC in collaboration with NYSERDA, will also present potential business models for TENs. These models were shaped through rigorous stakeholder engagement and start to highlight differences in financial benefits and outline operational responsibilities. Each business model presents distinct advantages and challenges while being designed to foster economic growth opportunities and enhance community workforce engagement. The business models have the potential to offer municipalities varying ownership structures, from control over system planning to governance, while supporting equitable consumer costs and alleviating energy-burdened communities of inequities.
Collaboration with non-profit organizations is another option, providing benefits such as tax-exempt status, transparency in competitive bidding, and a cost-effective procurement process that benefits buyers and sellers. Engaging private entities, local development corporations, and municipalities is another model that reduces a municipality’s financial burden while increasing access to federal and state incentives. By aligning operational capacity – resources, infrastructure, expertise, and processes – with local clean energy goals, municipalities can effectively integrate TENs into their long-term sustainability framework and planning. Thermal Energy Networks have potential to support a clean, resilient, and energy-efficient future by factoring regulatory approaches into an operational model that aligns with community needs.
Through initiatives like the Charrette, PECC supports municipalities in navigating regulatory landscapes and adopting innovative thermal energy solutions. The Charrette process prioritized listening to the voices of municipal stakeholders to help address their needs and enable their support of thermal energy solutions in their community. The nearly two-year process helped identify barriers, such as funding limitations and policy constraints, while considering the expectations of the municipalities. The roles of PECC and NYSERDA in implementing sustainable thermal energy will foster a cleaner, more equitable, and energy-efficient community rooted in collaboratively driven solutions.
The Pace Energy and Climate Center is pleased to announce that on Tuesday, April 22, 2025, Joseph Siegel, the Center’s Interim Executive Director, will join other climate change experts for the Sixth Annual Earth Day Climate Change Symposium of the New York State Bar Association. The virtual Symposium will cover developments in state climate change law, federal rollbacks on climate change in the Trump Administration, and corporate considerations on ESG requirements and risks posed by climate change. Siegel will cover climate change updates specific to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Joining Siegel on the panel will be Basil Seggos, former Commissioner of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and graduate of Elisabeth Haub School of Law, who will discuss state climate change developments. Other panelists include Michael Gerrard, Founder and Faculty Director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School, and Linda French, Global Head of Sustainability Policy & Regulation at JPMorgan Chase. & Co.
Details and Registration:
Tuesday, April 22, 2025 | 9:00 – 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time | 2.0 MCLE Credits | Webinar
Registration Link: https://nysba.org/events/sixth-annual-earth-day-climate-change-symposium/
The Pace Energy and Climate Center is happy to announce that four Elisabeth Haub School of Law student interns have joined the Center for the Spring 2025 semester. The interns, Opeyemi Naimot Dawodu, Tamika Thomas, Elizabeth Wescoe, and Brooke Wood, will be working on a broad set of issues including district geothermal codes and associated municipal permitting, thermal energy networks, expanded use of geothermal by municipalities, and related training to be offered by the Center. They will also be researching legal approaches to improving indoor air quality in underserved communities, opportunities under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and other international agreements to advance conflict resolution and collaboration on the climate crisis, and strategies to mediate domestic multi-stakeholder conflicts on renewable energy.
The interns will conduct research and writing, attend meetings, and assist with the ongoing work of the Center. The interns bring to the Center a range of experience and backgrounds, and we are very grateful that they have joined us. Their bios can be found here.
I’m honored to have joined the Pace Energy and Climate Center in January as its Interim Executive Director as we transition to the next permanent Executive Director. For four decades, under the leadership, vision, and wisdom of founder Dean Emeritus Richard Ottinger and successive Executive Directors, the Center has been a powerful voice on decarbonizing the energy sector, utility rate regulation to advance renewable energy and energy efficiency, solar markets, distributed energy resources, microgrids, energy justice, international energy policy, and other strategies to address climate change.
The Center has made advances in these areas by establishing and leading coalitions of organizations that share a common regulatory and policy agenda, participating in utility rate cases, issuing cutting-edge reports, partnering with government agencies and non-profits, and advising renewable energy companies and municipalities. Perhaps most importantly, through the Center’s innovative work, it has trained generations of law students who are now leaders in the field, as they transform the energy sector and tackle the climate crisis.
In the last several years, and continuing into 2025, the Center has maintained its leadership role through its innovative work on geothermal energy. The Center has been working with government partners to engage communities on district geothermal (also known as thermal energy networks), and is developing curriculum with its non-profit partners to train communities on regulatory options for geothermal energy development. The Center has also advised district-scale thermal energy developers and municipalities on regulatory requirements for geothermal energy.
In addition, the Center continues its long tradition of serving as a convenor in the field of renewable energy and energy efficiency, for example, by co-convening a coalition of clean energy organizations, and leading a network of clean energy and utility rate design experts. The Center also continues its work on community-scale solar, community choice aggregation and community distributed generation, with a particular focus on underserved communities.
Consistent with its long history of publishing groundbreaking reports in the clean energy field, the Center is poised to issue several reports on geothermal energy in the coming weeks and months. With the help of the Center’s Haub School of Law interns, we will profile some of these reports on this blog in the near future.
On Earth Day, the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University’s Energy and Climate Center and its partner the Westchester County Association (WCA), were honored for their work developing a Clean Energy Program Portal at the 3rd annual Westchester County ECO Awards. The portal is a dynamic, searchable guide which serves as a clearinghouse that enables businesses to easily find clean energy programs and incentives available in Westchester County and the surrounding region. The ECO award recognizes outstanding contributions to the environment and sustainability made by residents, students, schools, municipalities, businesses, and other organizations throughout the county. Read more: https://www.pace.edu/news/westchester-county-honors-pace-energy-and-climate-center-and-partner-wca-eco-award?law
