Could Vail be a model for geothermal energy? Colorado’s governor thinks so
Jared Polis stops in Vail to celebrate a $250,000 grant for the town explore the energy potential
Ben Roof/For the Vail Daily
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis stopped through Vail on Thursday to visit the site the town hopes will be the center of a new clean energy heating system as it looks to tap into geothermal energy.
Meeting between the Vail Public Library and Dobson Ice Arena, the governor joined representatives from the town, the Vail Recreation District, Holy Cross Energy, Vail Resorts and Eagle River Water and Sanitation District to discuss the opportunity of the “heat beneath our feet,” as Polis referred to it.
“We have great seismology for geothermal heating and cooling all the way to electric here in the Western United States. And this will be a very high-profile model for what we’re doing,” Polis said.
The town of Vail was one of 35 recipients that received a grant from Colorado’s Geothermal Energy Grant Program’s first funding round earlier this year. After performing thermal conductivity tests last fall, the $250,000 grant will allow the town to drill deeper into what a geothermal district could look like in Vail.
“We’re here really to celebrate something that we are doing a little bit, but think can be a huge opportunity for our community,” said Mayor Travis Coggin. “And that’s really to use excess heat, waste heat from buildings that we already have — and potentially hopefully geothermal sources— as well to not only push forward our climate goals but hopefully save some money as well.”
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With the funding, Vail is planning to perform an ambient temperature loop sink and source evaluation study to help inform what a potential geothermal district could look like. The district would incorporate the library, the nearby wastewater treatment plant, Dobson and village snowmelt systems.
“The backbone of the system is called an ambient temperature loop, and it’s essentially a large circular pipe system that just circulates water. And that water is picking up heat from boreholes, from chillers, from the wastewater treatment plant through heat exchangers,” said Cameron Millard, Vail’s energy efficiency coordinator.
“Then the buildings individually and the snowmelt systems utilize heat pumps. Those heat pumps, they use a glycol mixture just to go from the loop to the heat pump in the building,” Millard added.
In November 2023, the town hired a contractor to perform a thermal conductivity test in Ford Park. By drilling a 500-foot borehole in the park and circulating fluid through a closed loop to test how the water temperature changed, the test demonstrated “lots of potential” for geothermal energy, reported Kristen Bertuglia, the town’s environmental sustainability director.
“We’ve got really good thermal conductivity here, better than most places,” Bertuglia said.
Part of the grant funding will go toward finding other locations to drill boreholes — which would be used as a kind of thermal storage. Bertuglia indicated that the island between Dobson and the library is being considered. Vail Resorts, she added, has also shown interest in having a geothermal well on its property.
This was the governor’s second visit to celebrate geothermal in Eagle County this summer. In June, Polis stopped by the Eagle County campus in Eagle where the county is planning to build a geothermal system to replace its existing gas boiler system. The state also provided $250,000 from the first round of geothermal grants to help with the county’s build-out.
The grant program will also have a second round of funding for similar projects, but also tax credits. It’s expected that $35 million in merit-based tax credits will be given to eligible applicants for the development and production of geothermal electricity.
“The future of geothermal energy, the heat beneath our feet, is very bright here in Colorado, very bright here in the town of Vail,” Polis said.
How geothermal can help meet climate goals
The town’s research into geothermal is “all part of a goal of a fully decarbonized economy by 2050,” Coggin said.
In addition to the potential geothermal district heating the area’s buildings, the system also presents a significant opportunity for the town of Vail to decarbonize its largest producer of greenhouse gas emissions: its snowmelt system.
“It’s the largest snow melting system, perhaps in the U.S. — I don’t know if we’ve independently verified that — but it is quite large,” Coggin said, noting that this was “something to be both proud and a little ashamed of.”
Each year, it is responsible for between 5,500 to 6,500 metric tons of carbon dioxide, or about 80% of the town’s natural gas-related emissions.
The system currently uses natural gas boilers to heat fluid —a combination of water and food-grade glycol — that is then distributed to heat the pavers and streets in Vail Village and Lionshead.
In speaking to the benefits of geothermal, moving away from natural gas is a significant one, Polis said.
“Remember, when you need natural gas, you have to buy it whatever the market is … We want to be independent of that,” Polis said. “I mean, natural gas can go up because of wars in Europe. It can go up because of external economic factors. It can go up because of speculation. And this removes the need for having to worry about that.”
“We can replace the need for natural gas with reliable geothermal, 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, and next to zero ongoing costs,” he added.
In addition to meeting the town’s climate goals, geothermal in Vail will help with broader community goals as well.
Among the town’s partners on its geothermal project is Holy Cross Energy, which has made transitioning to a clean energy future its top priority. In 2019, Holy Cross Energy’s board of directors set a goal to have a 100% carbon-free power supply by 2030.
On Thursday, Bryan Hannegan, the president and CEO of Holy Cross Energy, shared the utility will hit 90% by the end of 2025 with its current projects and programs. This gives Holy Cross Energy “five years to capture that last 10%,” which Hannegan has previously indicated will be the most difficult.
“Projects like this one are very important for that last 10%,” Hannegan said.
“When we have too much wind or too much solar to serve the electricity load, we can partner with projects like these to provide extra hot or chilled water to help the thermal energy system meet its needs,” he added. “And that allows a very effective way for us to store that renewable energy during the midday that we would otherwise curtail at a cost. We can store that energy to be used by the thermal system in the afternoon and reduce strain on the electric grid so we don’t have to build that grid bigger.”
This, Hannegan added is a “win-win for both consumers and the environment because we increase the efficiency on both the electric and the thermal side.”
Can Vail pave the way for others?
In addition to the direct impact to the town of Vail and decarbonization goals, Polis shared that the Vail project will serve as a “very high-profile model” for demonstrating the potential of geothermal.
“This is a very exciting district heating project. Not only will it save operating costs once it’s installed for all of the great buildings that are heated and cooled this way, providing the snowmelt here and saving the town of Vail significant resources, but it’ll also be an example for many others,” Polis said.
“The town of Vail, with this project, can be an ambassador of geothermal energy to the many people who pass through and can learn about the great opportunities that they can take back to their communities, not only across Colorado, but across the country and world,” he added.
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Part of the future of geothermal, Polis added, is the potential of “geothermal electric” — which is using geothermal to produce electricity. With the energy office’s tax credits, the administration hopes to incentivize and support its exploration and implementation.
“We’re very excited that geothermal electric — currently 0% of the power in Colorado, but several percent of the power in Utah and Nevada and California — (which) will likely be a part of our 100% clean energy because geothermal electric energy is 365 days a year, 24 hours a day,” Polis said.
“As we move towards more renewable — especially the low-cost workhorses of the renewable energy economy, solar and wind — we will also need that baseload piece and geothermal electric is a huge opportunity,” he added.
As the event concluded on Thursday, Polis paused for a photo with Millard’s two kids: “This is why we’re doing it, for our kids,” Millard said.
