The Boston Globe Magazine spotlights an esteemed group of movers and shakers in its annual Bostonians of the Year commendations. Among the 2024 honorees is our colleague, Zeyneb Magavi, executive director of HEET. We’re delighted to post the salute to Zeyneb, written by the Globe‘s Ivy Scott, in full:
‘Who loves gas leaks?” asks Zeyneb Magavi, executive director of renewable energy nonprofit HEET. “No one!”
As a physicist and mother of three young children, Magavi’s interest in geothermal heating and cooling began a decade ago as a volunteer with grass-roots organization Mothers Out Front, campaigning for natural gas companies to fix the leaks coming from ancient pipes buried beneath the streets of her Cambridge neighborhood.
But the longer she studied the aging infrastructure, the more Magavi and HEET cofounder Audrey Schulman suspected there had to be a more cost-effective — and environmentally friendly — alternative to digging up and replacing dozens of pipes each year.
Using heat pumps that rely on geothermal energy, which draw on the consistent temperature below ground to heat and cool buildings, is nothing new. But rather than build individual systems for each building on the block, Magavi realized there was a way to link the same underground system to a whole community (something similar was already underway at one Colorado university). She urged legislators to allow utility companies to install the technology, and foot the bill for making it happen, as an alternative to natural gas.
Congrats, Zeyneb!
Photo: HEET
