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This is a really cool idea that is pretty impressive to be undertaken by an existing community. My friend lives in the Hawthorne District in Portland and let me know about the plans to put the whole community on a much more efficient energy platform of hydronic heating and cooling fed by a biofuel boiler. Check it out.

The below is taken from the website.

“Project Overview
Sunnyside Neighborhood Energy (SunNE) is conceived as a comprehensive solution to local thermal energy needs. It will be structured as a community-owned district energy (DE) utility powered by renewable sources that will serve Sunnyside Environmental School and the surrounding historic neighborhood and commercial areas. The project is modeled on existing mid-sized DE utilities in Sweden, Denmark and Canada, which use solar thermal storage and biofuel boilers to provide thermal energy for detached single-family homes, multi-family residential and small commercial buildings. Adapting these successful international examples for implementation in Oregon gives us a scalable, replicable model whose economic and environmental impact will be tremendous.”