Drake Landing Solar Community

The Drake Landing Solar Community (DLSC) is located in Okotoks, Alberta, 15 minutes south of Calgary. The unique feature of DLSC is that 90 percent of space heating needs for the community's 52 single-detached homes will be met by solar thermal energy, a feat unprecedented anywhere else in the world. The DLSC is also the first major implementation... in North America of a technology known as seasonal solar thermal energy storage. Solar thermal energy is collected in the summer, stored underground, and then returned to the homes as heat during the winter. There are five main components of the DLSC project: the solar collection , the Energy Centre with short-term energy storage, the seasonal Borehole Thermal Energy Storage (BTES) system, the district heating system , and the energy efficient homes certified to the R-2000 Standard. Visit the How It Works section to learn how these five components are integrated to create an unparalleled residential heating system based on a renewable resource - the sun. The DLSC was a project conceived by Natural Resources Canada (NRCan), a federal department of the Government of Canada. To see the DLSC through to fruition, NRCan established partnerships with innovative, environmentally conscious companies that had longstanding, credible reputations within their industries. Ground was broken at the DLSC in the spring of 2005 with a completion date of fall 2005.Read More