The Ann Arbor (MI) City Council has accepted a $10,778,167 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Community Geothermal Technologies Office (GTO) to begin implementing a community geothermal heating and cooling system in the city’s Bryant neighborhood. 

The award funding represents a second phase of support to Ann Arbor from the DOE, with the first phase supporting deep engagement with Bryant residents to understand their heating and cooling needs and design a system capable of meeting those needs. This second phase of funding will allow the City, under the newly created Sustainable Energy Utility (SEU), to build and operate a community geothermal system to provide nearly all of the heating and cooling needs for the 262 homes in the Bryant neighborhood along with the local elementary school and community center.   

“The U.S. Department of Energy’s funding support is instrumental in helping us affordably heat and cool homes in the Bryant neighborhood, and we are grateful for their continued collaboration,” said Dr. Missy Stults, Director of Ann Arbor’s Office of Sustainability and Innovations. 

While geothermal systems can be designed to serve an individual household or building, the design proposed by Ann Arbor imagines a system that serves multiple households and buildings at one time. Over the next several months, the City and its partners will finalize the details of the geothermal design (being led by IMEG) and initiate the contracting process to begin building the system. The goal is to have a fully operational geothermal system for Bryant in 2028.  

Learn more about the project and IMEG’s role.