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I was looking at something similar... but completely different to this. The main thing that takes up gameplay is the logic. Zones themselves don't take up any more thermo, though they may have performance costs. But I'd definitely look at reducing the amount of logic existing at any one time. By this, I mean emit the logic when it is needed, and destroy logic when it is no longer needed.

For my instance, I was trying to create cans that move physically and have other logic to them as you interact with them. The creator that was using something like that had just put all the logic into the one can, and then originally had them cloned a couple hundred times or something, which took a ton of gameplay because of the complexity of the logic.

They then tried emitting the "real" version as you near them, but then that just skyrocketed the thermo as you wandered around the place without cleaning up after itself.

So in my version, seen in "Efficient Physical Cans" (https://indreams.me/scene/dYhHnHYNzkB), I have two versions of the can. One is a "dead" can with no physics, collision, nothing. All it does is detect if something is happening nearby that may require it to become "alive," at which point it emits the live can and destroys itself. The live can does cool logic stuff, but also has a cooldown that starts when it thinks might not need to be physical anymore. When that time is up, it emits a dead can and destroys itself again. (In the demo scene, the physical version is a lighter colour so it's easy to see what's going on.)

So then, most of the cans that are ever in the scene are really cheap on thermo. When necessary, they completely swap out to become live and use more thermo. Until they cool down and become dead again and use less thermo.

In the scene, I have a couple hundred dead cans with no problem whatsoever and the live cans behave as expected. The scene itself is pretty low thermo. And during gameplay, thermo goes up and down as necessary, using as little thermo and logic features as possible.

For your case, you may be able to use a similar method. Emit the "interactive" logic version when the player can interact with it. Nearby tiles may swap out for interactive ones too so they can check and react to any changes made. That kind of thing.

Hope this helps. I can explain the logic in that scene some more if anyone would like me to.