Ann Arbor City Council Votes Unanimously to Accept $11 Million for District Geothermal System

Ann Arbor City Council on October 7, 2025, voted unanimously to accept nearly $11 million ($10,788,167) from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to implement a district-scale geothermal heating and cooling system in the Bryant neighborhood. 

This award funding represents a second budget phase to Ann Arbor from DOE with the first phase supporting engagement with Bryant residents to design a system capable of meeting their heating and cooling needs. This second phase of funding will allow the City, under the newly created Sustainable Energy Utility (SEU), to build and operate a 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 City of Ann Arbor will finance approximately $11.1 million in additional funds to bring the full project to fruition.  

“The U.S. Department of Energy’s funding is instrumental in providing affordable heating and cooling for homes in the Bryant neighborhood, and we are grateful for this opportunity,” said Dr. Missy Stults, Director of the 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 simultaneously. Each home or building in the system will have its own geothermal heat pump that connects to the underground geothermal loop, allowing it to transfer thermal energy among the homes, buildings, and the overall system while meeting each building's unique heating/cooling needs. 

Over the next several months, the City and its partners will finalize the details of the geothermal design and initiate the contracting process to begin building the system. The goal is to have a fully operational geothermal system for Bryant in 2028. Major collaborators on the City’s successful grant application include: the residents of Bryant, Community Action Network, IMEG, and UA Local 190: Plumbers, Pipefitters, Service Technicians, and Gas Distribution Workers.  

To learn more about the City’s work on geothermal, see the City’s geothermal heating and cooling website. For more information on programs from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Geothermal Technologies Office, visit GTO’s website. 

# # # # #

Media Contact:

Dr. Missy Stults, Director of Sustainability and Innovations, mstults@a2gov.org