Vermont Gas Utility Covers the Upfront Cost of Geothermal for Affordable Housing

One of the biggest obstacles standing between geothermal heating and wider adoption is the price tag attached to what goes underground. A Vermont utility is testing a way around that barrier by absorbing the cost itself.

Vermont Gas (VGS) has teamed up with Dandelion Energy to install geothermal heating and cooling at Riggs Meadow, a development in Hinesburg that will hold 44 townhomes and apartments aimed at low- and moderate-income residents. Under the arrangement, VGS pays for and retains ownership of the underground pipe networks, or ground loops, while Dandelion handles design and drilling. The developers behind the project, Champlain Housing Trust and Evernorth, weighed their options with VGS before bringing Dandelion aboard, and four multifamily buildings covering 36 of the homes are set to run on geothermal, each with its own loop.

The system relies on electric ground-source heat pumps that push fluid through buried pipes to shift heat between the earth and the buildings — pulling warmth from the ground in winter and depositing it underground in summer. Because subsurface temperatures remain fairly constant, the setup performs well through both Vermont’s frigid winters and its warmer months. What makes this case notable is the financing structure: developers normally have to source that underground infrastructure money on their own, but here the utility carries it, opening the door for all-electric heating and cooling within a gas company’s portfolio.

Dandelion CEO Dan Yates framed utility-owned ground loops as a practical, near-term route to cutting emissions from housing, while VGS president and CEO Neale Lunderville said the partnership shows how geothermal can be scaled to meet community needs as the state pushes to build housing quickly. Drilling is slated to start in early 2027, with residents expected to move in later that year. What Riggs Meadow residents will actually pay in monthly loop fees and heating and cooling costs has not been made public.