The MTA chair cited pipe infrastructure under the Lower Manhattan municipal campus as a factor making it possible to explore a potential thermal energy network, but noted systems across the Con Edison steam network and sites like Rockefeller Center as opportunities. Incorporating excess subway heat into a building’s energy mix could help owners avoid steep penalties — currently $268 for every ton of carbon above a building’s limit — and potentially ease compliance overall down the line. “We are taking advantage of an existing underground connectivity and network that makes it easy to feed it.” The study is expected to cost $800,000 and the thermal energy network would be the first of its kind in any U.S. transit system. The feasibility of the Mamdani administration’s initial plan with the MTA, which also aims to heat City Hall, Tweed Courthouse and Surrogate’s Court, will largely determine whether the subway thermal network model goes wide.