Want a job drilling for geothermal? A Northeast training hub is coming.

Geothermal networks are taking off across the U.S., with roughly 30 such projects in various stages in Massachusetts, Colorado, and elsewhere.

These systems — which use electric heat pumps and thermal energy from underground to warm and cool buildings — are key to weaning communities off polluting fossil-fueled appliances and reining in home utility bills, supporters say.

But the buildout faces a major roadblock: There just aren’t enough qualified workers to drill the thousands of boreholes needed for the anticipated networks. The United States now has about 19,500 professional drillers working outside the oil and gas industry, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. This workforce would need to triple in size to meet the U.S. Department of Energy’s target, announced in 2022 under the Biden administration, of installing 17,500 geothermal networks by 2050, said Brock Yordy, president and co-founder of the Geothermal Drillers Association.

“This work is absolutely essential in New England and anywhere there are legacy heating systems that are fossil-fueled,” said Lawrence McKenna, chair of the Department of Environment, Society, and Sustainability at Framingham State University in Massachusetts. ​“But we don’t have the personnel to man the equipment.”

An initiative led by the nonprofit Home Energy Efficiency Team, or HEET, and the Geothermal Drillers Association aims to turn this obstacle into an opportunity. As many states attempt to reduce their carbon emissions, the natural gas industry is likely to slow down, leaving many experienced workers unemployed. At the same time, young people are entering a job market that, well, ​“sucks,” said McKenna. The anticipated growth of geothermal networks could create jobs that repurpose gas workers’ existing skills, pay well, and lead to career paths that can’t be undone by AI.

The vision is to create a nationwide network of Geothermal Drilling Centers of Excellence that will conduct training and research to develop the geothermal drilling workforce. Each center would offer programming tailored to meet the location’s specific needs.

“It’s a huge advantage to have something like this exist regionally, so you can pace the workforce development with the market development in a more cost-effective, reasonable way,” said Zeyneb Magavi, HEET’s executive director.

The first center is set to launch later this year in Framingham, Massachusetts, home of the country’s first utility-owned, neighborhood-scale thermal network. The training will build on the Geothermal Drillers Association’s existing two-week pre-apprenticeship program, which provides the groundwork for understanding the field, including the basics of geothermal science, the fundamentals of drilling boreholes, the differences between various drilling disciplines, and workplace safety and protocols.

This training provides a valuable on-ramp into the industry, but so far has been missing a major component: real-world drilling practice. Buying a drill rig was not in the budget, and leasing one proved difficult. For liability reasons, students are limited to visiting worksites only after activity is done for the day.

“Right now, we can do the classroom work, and we go into the field and visit projects,” Yordy said. ​“But you can’t get the practical piece.”

The Framingham Center of Excellence will solve that problem. In April, the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, an economic development agency, awarded the program $1.2 million in grants that will allow the initiative to buy a drilling rig and mobile classroom. This equipment will allow students to do hands-on drilling.

At the same time, Framingham State plans to launch a more intensive offering: a yearlong, six-course certificate program in geothermal drilling. Currently, the only comparable training operates out of a college in Canada, Magavi said. The Massachusetts program will delve into all the trigonometry and thermodynamics needed to understand how the systems work, and include several lab classes.

“They’re out doing the very work they’re going to do when they finish, with real equipment and real professionals in the field,” McKenna said.

Organizers are still figuring out exactly what the first Center for Excellence will look like. They’re reviewing possible sites for training and drilling practice within Framingham and nailing down the specifics of the partnership with Framingham State.

“This Center of Excellence is very much being collaboratively bootstrapped into existence, moving from our collective imaginations into reality,” Magavi said.

If the vision is realized, the benefits will reach beyond just the individuals entering new careers and the residents getting cleaner, more affordable heating and cooling, supporters say. A thriving geothermal workforce can lead to more widespread economic development.

“It’s not just about the jobs,” Magavi said. ​“Building the energy infrastructure of the future is an extraordinary development action.”