HADLEY — A geothermal project to provide renewable energy to Hopkins Academy and improve the heating and cooling for the 1950s era building by replacing the existing boilers could cost around $9.5 million, with the schools picking up about $5.5 million of this cost, based on a report presented by consultants this week.

Representatives from Clough, Harbour & Associates, LLP of Boston, or CHA, told the Hadley School Committee Monday, that even with incentives and reimbursements from both the federal government, through the Inflation Reduction Act, and Eversource, as the local power supplier, the uppermost price tag would be more than three times the estimates from a so-called scoping study completed in summer 2023.

That study, prepared by UndauntedK12, an organization that helps schools across the country move to zero-carbon emissions, showed the costs of three air-source based and one ground-source based, ranging in price from $930,000 to $3.65 million, with this cost lowered to $618,000 to $1.7 million through incentives. Just replacing the boilers themselves would cost $1.8 million.

“You’ve put us on a good path, and I thank you,” said Chairwoman Humera Fasihuddin, following the presentation.

But Fasihuddin acknowledged the committee members will have a lot to discuss at a future meeting due to the significant costs. “Definitely, this is a much bigger number,” Fasihuddin said.

CHA engineer Saarthak Narsipur walked the committee through the report and a design document that has reached the 90% stage.

A major cost is putting in the 40 geothermal wells, 800-feet deep bores, and the horizontal piping and mechanical equipment, at around $3 million. “That’s one of the biggest cost items,” Narsipur said.

The HVAC equipment and electrical costs, distribution panel and conduits would cost another $4 million, with $686,000 related to other work in the school building.

The report, Narsipur said, shows that heating in the school is currently done by two steam boilers, and the building is served by fuel oil, with steam sent to heating ventilators in classrooms, hallways, the cafeteria and gym. Though capable of doing both heating and cooling, the system’s air-source heat pumps aren’t communicating with the steam system condenser units across the building and on its roof.

“There’s situations where both are turned on and both are doing the same job, and this is leading to more energy consumption, from what we’ve seen,” Narsipur said.

The project also has a new control system and would bring cooling to the gym for the first time, as well as to the cafeteria. At the same time, the project is being integrated with an overhaul of the locker rooms. The upgrades systems, Marsipur said, are supplemented by a natural gas boiler that could be used as a backup in case of outage or extremely cold weather.

Incentives for the project include $810,000 from Eversource and $3.2 million from the Inflation Reduction Act tax credit, based on a 30% tax credit and a 10% bonus adder for using domestic content.

John Tesh, a project manager at CHA, said there is a lot of flexibility in where the geothermal bore holes can be placed and connecting “the house” to the bore field through a trench of pipes. The idea is these would go where there is the least amount of asphalt, so the parking lot isn’t impacted.

Tesh said the intent is to stay mostly on the grass where a test hole was previously done. The consultants are also taking into consideration the possibility that new pickleball courts may be placed over the wellfield.

Prior to the discussion, Superintendent Anne McKenzie told the committee that the heat pump project is not eligible for funding under the Massachusetts School Building Authority’s Accelerated Repair Program.

Even if the school plans on replacing the steam pipe fitting, the school couldn’t access these funds because the mechanical heating distribution is supported by steam distribution piping.

Fasihuddin called this an “insane” requirement since “these grants are meant to replace these technologies.”

Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.