Thermal Energy Networks pilot grant
Grants for invited gas utilities to build and operate shared clean heating and cooling networks in Washington state.
Această oportunitate este disponibilă momentan în limba engleză.
A thermal energy network circulates water through underground pipes to heat and cool several buildings. This pilot supports utility-owned and operated networks using geothermal energy, solar thermal energy or waste heat instead of burning fossil fuels.
The 2025 solicitation had a total budget of $4.85 million, with one to three contracts intended and partial initial awards possible. Your grant cannot exceed the extra cost of building and operating the pilot compared with your gas company’s lowest reasonable cost resources under its current business practices. The Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission determines that difference and sends the amount to Commerce.
Grant recipients must coordinate with other awardees, the commission, Commerce and expert consultants so that the pilots are diverse and inform future network ownership, market and rate structures.
Eligibility
The programme is by invitation only and is restricted to gas companies under RCW 80.04.010. This includes companies, associations, partnerships, individuals, cities and towns owning, controlling, operating or managing a gas plant in Washington, as well as their lessees, trustees or court-appointed receivers. Owning a thermal network alone does not satisfy this gas-company requirement. The commission reviews the pilot for approval. Its required review covers the following points; these are review considerations rather than separate numerical eligibility thresholds:
Customers and workers: customer numbers and types, the share of low-income customers, use of the existing gas workforce, transition and training, recruitment, job creation and retention, prevailing wages and registered apprenticeships.
Service and equipment: infrastructure safety and reliability, ability to meet all customers’ space-heating demand, coordination with the local electric utility, enrolment in that utility’s demand-response programme, and a distributed network using ambient-temperature fluid and efficient heat pumps in each building.
Community and climate outcomes: public-health and affordability benefits, climate-justice and emissions-reduction mandates, equitable and affordable building electrification, information useful for network regulation, and the potential to decommission gas pipelines or avoid their replacement.
The commission may also consider emissions reductions, nonfossil and noncombustion heat sources and electric heat pumps, hot-water and cooling supply, and thermal storage. Commerce considers the submitted review information and commission findings when deciding awards and may prioritize cost-effectiveness and geographic diversity. The solicitation also evaluates readiness and alignment with state climate and equity goals. Before deployment, an investor-owned gas company must request project proposals, compare deployment costs against its lowest reasonable alternative heating resource under current practices, and share the comparison with the commission. It may instead petition for an alternative cost-estimation process, which the commission can approve, deny or approve with changes.
Gas companies can have development priority in their service territory. Maintaining that priority requires written notice of a specific site to the commission within 12 months of June 6, 2024 and deployment within 30 months of that date. The commission can extend these deadlines for substantial progress and can withhold priority where an existing thermal energy company has deployed or is developing a network.
How to apply
- Statut
- închis
- Se deschide
- Se închide
- Condițiile sesiunii de finanțare
- By invitation only; gas companies as defined in RCW 80.04.010.
The published invitation-only proposal window closed in October 2025. For programme enquiries, contact Esther Nielsen at Esther.Nielsen@Commerce.wa.gov using the official programme page.
When submitting a pilot for commission review, include proposed evaluation metrics to inform future rules and rates. Commission review includes a public comment period of at least 30 days. Commerce administers the grant solicitation and uses the commission’s calculated cost difference in the award decision.