HR 564 is specific about what that study should cover. The resolution directs the commission to map district energy networks, data centers, planned data center developments, and industrial facilities with potentially recoverable waste heat or demand for heat reuse. That includes heat associated with manufacturing, food processing, wastewater treatment, and power generation. It also calls for identifying opportunities to use that heat at health care and educational campuses, commercial facilities, agricultural facilities, residential communities, and manufacturing facilities, while examining regulatory, technical, economic, infrastructure, and permitting barriers.
That makes the study relevant to more than waste heat. The same industrial facilities and communities that can use recovered heat could also be customers for geothermal heat, and thermal networks can draw on multiple sources. Mapping where Pennsylvania’s heat demand is concentrated will therefore help identify markets for both recovered heat and geothermal.
The commission is tasked with holistically engaging with a broad range of stakeholders, including heat producers, potential users, utilities, government, labor, and other key voices, with a report due within one year. A law enacted in July requires data centers with peak electric demand of at least 10 megawatts to begin reporting energy and water consumption, including any measures undertaken to recover waste heat. Those reports begin in 2027. HR 564 asks a different question: where recoverable heat exists, where nearby demand exists, and what would be required to connect the two.
That same map could be valuable for geothermal. Project InnerSpace is completing an analysis showing where Pennsylvania’s industrial and other thermal demand overlaps with its subsurface heat resources. Combined with the work envisioned by HR 564, it could help identify specific clusters where waste heat, geothermal heat, or both could serve concentrated demand.
That analysis builds on Project InnerSpace’s February 2025 report, The Future of Geothermal in Pennsylvania, which examined another part of the state’s thermal energy picture. Drawing on extensive subsurface temperature data collected and modeled in a state with a long history of oil and gas development, the report found that Pennsylvania has at least 1,000 times more energy available as underground heat than Pennsylvanians consume each year.
Finding the places where heat supply and demand overlap is only useful if projects have a workable path to development. That is where Pennsylvania’s pending geothermal legislation becomes important. The pending Geothermal Energy Development Act, HB 2076, would establish a dedicated regulatory framework for geothermal projects, including permitting standards for geothermal wells and rules for repurposing existing oil and gas wells. The House passed the bill 118-83 in May, and it is now before the Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee.
The report being compiled following passage of HR 564 will give Pennsylvania a clearer map of where thermal demand is concentrated, where recoverable heat is available, and where infrastructure could connect the two. Project InnerSpace’s analysis can add another layer by showing where those same demand clusters overlap with geothermal resources, highlighting where geothermal and waste heat could work together to serve thermal demand.
That would move the conversation from statewide potential to specific places where projects make sense. But finding the clusters is only the first step. Developing geothermal within them still requires a predictable regulatory pathway for drilling and development. HR 564 can help identify where the opportunity is; HB 2076 would help make it possible to pursue.