Waste Heat Recovery

NYC’s Subway Is Sitting on a Thermal Goldmine. Nobody Noticed Until Now.

NYC’s MTA is studying a plan to capture waste heat from subway platforms and store it for winter building heating. But this isn’t just a cooling project — it’s a stealth district energy system that reframes the subway as a thermal battery. The heat making commuters miserable in July could warm apartments in January. We’ve been calling it waste. It was never waste.