“We’re not aware of this being tried in a public historic site like this before, so we really don’t have anything to compare it to,” Blanchette said. “But we’re confident the savings will be significant because of the nature of geothermal.”Part of the project is funded by a $25,000 grant from the Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation. This isn't the first project in the region to benefit from the foundation. You can read about the others at their website.
Other units of local government such as the Springfield school district, County Health Department, and Prairie Capital Convention Center board could be benefiting from the Clean Energy Community Foundation grants right now if they were more proactive about seeking them for new projects. The loss of that money is the cost of leaders who hesitate to embrace new ideas and prefer to keep doing things because "we've always done it that way."