Exeter has 86 new additions to its campus infrastructure which won’t be heard nor seen but whose output will be felt for decades to come.
A four-month long project to sink geothermal wells beneath the Academy Building lawn is near completion. Those wells, joining the more than 40 that already were in place, will be used to heat and cool a new dining hall and, eventually, the Academy Building itself.
Geothermal well systems are designed to use the Earth’s relatively constant subsurface temperature along with a heat exchanger to either add to or remove heat from a building. Existing wells on campus regulate temperatures in Phillips Hall, New Hall and the Goel Center, among other places. The well projects are part of Exeter’s Sustainability and Climate Action Plan announced last spring.
The new dining hall and renovated Merrill and Langdell halls are on schedule to open next fall.