The two systemsat a glance
Same MicroLink architecture in our containers. Two district energy operators with different scale, different temperature regime, different counterparty shape. Both technically credible for a heat recovery partnership.
A combined heat and power station serving over 70 million square feet of Cambridge and Boston building space across 29 miles [47 km] of pipe to roughly 230 facilities. The 42 MW eSteam electric boiler entered service November 2024. A 35 MW ammonia industrial heat pump is under construction for 2028.
Vicinity Energy is the operator of the Cambridge and Boston district steam system, headquartered in Boston with the Kendall Cogeneration Station as the central plant. The company has published a portfolio decarbonisation programme, with eSteam coming online in November 2024 and the industrial heat pump targeting mid 2028.
The heat pump architecture is the integration point. Vicinity has publicly described the heat pump as drawing low grade heat from the Charles River as evaporator source. Our 65 °C [149 °F] warm water output enters that evaporator side at a temperature well above ambient river water, improving the coefficient of performance of the host's already capitalised electrification project.
Siting candidates within 1 to 2 km [0.6 to 1.2 mi] of Kendall include Innovation Square, Cambridge Crossing fringe parcels, the Volpe Center parcel under federal disposition, MIT Kendall Square Initiative land, and the Kneeland Parcel 25/27A redevelopment in Boston's Chinatown.
- Heat pump integration with the 35 MW ammonia industrial heat pump build
- Boiler feedwater preheat as a near term integration point pre-2028
- Third party heat input framework alongside Vicinity's commercial team
- Mass DPU regulatory pathway for heat injection into a regulated district system
- Site fit and parcel control at named candidates within 1 to 2 km of Kendall Station
A low temperature hot water plant at ≤82 °C [180 °F] design, 43 MWth installed, with a heat recovery chiller producing simultaneous heating and cooling and a 5,070 ML [1.34 M gal] thermal storage tank for load shifting. Operated by Harvard University Engineering & Utilities.
Harvard's Allston District Energy Facility serves the Allston campus and the Enterprise Research Campus, a mixed use innovation district being developed by Harvard and Tishman Speyer west of the Charles River. The plant uses a low temperature hot water distribution loop with thermal storage, an architecture explicitly designed for incremental low grade heat input.
The temperature match is direct. Our 65 °C [149 °F] warm water output enters the LTHW return loop without temperature uplift, supplementing the existing heat recovery chiller and the gas fired heating capacity. The thermal storage tank smooths the diurnal mismatch between compute waste heat and building heating demand.
The siting opportunity is co-located with the ERC build out. As Enterprise Research Campus phases come online, the DEF capacity scales with them, and an adjacent containerised compute deployment can be sized to the incremental thermal load.
- Direct LTHW return integration at 65 °C [149 °F] into the existing distribution loop
- Thermal storage interaction with the 5,070 ML [1.34 M gal] tank for load shifting
- Enterprise Research Campus alignment with the active phase build out
- Harvard institutional process through Engineering & Utilities and the schools
- Site fit on Western Avenue alongside the existing DEF and the ERC parcels