ATHOL – A new heat pump system will soon be installed at the police station, at no cost to taxpayers.

The new system, which will cost approximately $178,000, will be paid for through a $139,000 Green Communities grant from the Healey-Driscoll administration and a $40,000 incentive from National Grid. The new system will help make the station more energy-efficient and cut down on carbon emissions.

“Last fall, I worked with the town’s Energy Committee to build on one of our projects,” said Planning and Development Director Eric Smith. “We recently had building audits done on the police station and also on the Town Hall and wastewater treatment plant, and we decided to do some weatherization work at the police station.

“In 2024, we were able to put together a proposal, working with ECI (Energy Conservation, Inc. of Hanson, Mass.), to replace the rooftop units with heat pumps. Now, they’re a propane-based heating system, and they’ll still have a propane backup. But the main four rooftop units will be converted to heat pump-based systems; that moves to electrification as part of our decarbonization efforts.”

According to the website EnergyEducation, a heat pump can transfer heat from the ground, air, or water to another body, such as a building.

The Healey-Driscoll administration recently announced more than $7.2 million in Green Communities grants to cities and towns across Massachusetts to fund clean energy projects. The Department of Energy Resources selected 42 municipalities to receive the competitive grants, Athol among them.

Among Smith’s other priorities is repairs and upgrades to Town Hall.

“Right now, we’re looking at the oil boiler system,” he said. “We do have a grant that has given us $50,000, plus $27,000 in a town grant match, and that’s paying for a design for the town hall. That’s actually going to be an air-to-water heat pump system. That design work is underway. When that’s done, we’ll have 100% design plans, then we’ll know how much funding we need for the project.”

Design work for the Town Hall system is being done by RISE Engineering of Cranston, Rhode Island. An initial estimate for the project provided by RISE last year put the cost at around $900,000. Smith said the company has done other projects for the town.

“One beautiful thing about the police station – there’s no local town tax dollar money going toward the police station rooftop heat pump replacement project,” Smith said. “Our goal, hopefully, is to make the same thing happen with the Town Hall project. But we’ll have to see when we get the final numbers in.”

Greg Vine can be reached at gvineadn@gmail.com.