The Aspen School District received $78,400 on June 30 to study whether it could effectively harness geothermal energy. The funding comes from Colorado’s Geothermal Energy Grant Program.
Currently, only one of Aspen’s three school buildings has air conditioning. Joe Waneka, the district’s operations director, said he’s been opening the vents overnight to cool the other buildings, but it still gets too warm by the afternoon.
“1 to 3 (p.m.), they’re getting kind of stuffy and hot,” Waneka said. “I can't get any more squeeze out of that juice. I really need some cooling mechanism to help.”
Instead of immediately spending $18-20 million installing traditional cooling systems, the district is first assessing whether they could use geothermal energy to cool and heat their buildings.
That would come with a big upfront cost, about $35 million.
But Waneka says a federal tax credit, which was spared in the Big Beautiful Bill, would cover about $16 million in rebates, and a state grant could cover another $5 million. Plus, a geothermal system could shave up to 75% off the schools’ utility bill.
It would also go a long way towards the district’s goal of net-zero carbon emissions. But Waneka doesn’t want to stop there.
“It’s one of our pillars, we want to be net zero,” Waneka said. “But I want to be innovative and take it one step further and become net positive.”
Some geothermal systems can generate electricity, on top of their heating and cooling capacity.
If the district brought technology like that online, Waneka estimates they could earn about $1 million a year by selling excess power back to the utility.
He said the city of Aspen is also interested in geothermal, and they’re in talks with the district about partnering on a potential system.
But there’s no guarantee that the geologic conditions in Aspen will be conducive to geothermal energy. The state grant money will go towards a feasibility study to figure that out. Waneka said the district needs to raise another $70,000 to pay for a test bore hole they hope to drill in September.
If that timeline holds, the district expects to know whether geothermal will be feasible before winter break.
