Massachusetts, one of the constituent states of the United States of America, has a total land area of 20,306 km2 and a population size of 6.7 million, as of 2015 (State Census). According to the 2014 Commonwealth Accelerated Renewable Thermal Strategy report on Massachusetts, six renewable thermal technologies are deployed by state agencies to facilitate domestic heating in the residential sector cold-climate air-source heat pumps (ccASHP), ground-source heat pumps (GSHP), biomass thermal (BM), solar thermal (ST), biofuels (BF) and biogas (BG) (Navigant Consulting, 2014).
An in-depth analysis of the technologies shows that on one hand, their acquisition, implementation, and maintenance within the residential sector require substantial investment. However, on the other hand, their use is anticipated to minimize GHG emissions due to reliance on renewable energy sources. The researcher observes that few studies have empirically examined the mitigation of GHGs in Massachusetts illustrating the need to identify the actual cost of GHG emissions mitigation prior to the deployment of the five technologies.