One heat source for 52 homes: the plan as building began
As construction continued in Okotoks in late 2005, Drake Landing was set up as one solar-fed heat source for 52 homes, with summer heat stored in the ground for winter. Storage mattered most, because the sun is weakest when homes need the most heat.
Event date: 2005-12-03
The winter mismatch
A house wants the most heat in January, when sunshine is scarcest. Solar space heating only works if summer energy can be kept for months. A district system makes that practical. Rather than a furnace in each house, one plant makes hot water and insulated pipes carry it to every door. At Drake Landing the plant was a field of about 800 collectors on garage and breezeway roofs, feeding the Energy Centre.
Summer in, winter out
Heat that was not needed straight away went through water-filled pipes into a field of 144 boreholes drilled about 37 metres deep. The ground was expected to warm toward 80 C by the end of each summer. When the heating season began, the flow reversed and a loop took the stored heat to the houses, where an air handler passed it to the forced-air ducts. The principle is covered step by step in borehole storage.
Backup, hot water and the monthly fee
Two natural gas boilers at the Energy Centre stood behind the solar supply. Each home also had its own solar hot water unit, expected to meet up to 60 per cent of domestic hot water, with a high-efficiency gas heater as support. Together the systems were expected to cut about five tonnes of emissions per home each year.
Owners were to pay a fixed monthly heating charge, set against a benchmark of roughly $60 a month for a typical Okotoks home at the time. Seven show homes were open and the first phase had sold.
A town-sized idea and what became of Drake Landing
A separate proposal applied the same approach to a southern Alberta town of about 1,800 people, with a cost estimate of $15 to $20 million. It was at the pre-engineering stage, and this site has no verified outcome for it.
Drake Landing itself was built and operated. Monitoring reported a 97 per cent solar share by 2012 and 100 per cent in the 2015-16 heating season, and the system was wound down from 2024. See the performance results for the record.
Quick answers
Why does solar heating need seasonal storage?
Heat demand peaks in winter, when sunshine is lowest. Storing summer heat in the ground lets a solar system supply warmth months after it was collected.
What backed up the solar supply at Drake Landing?
Two natural gas boilers at the Energy Centre provided backup, and each home's hot water unit had a gas heater as support.
Did the town-wide solar proposal go ahead?
This site has no verified record of it being built. It was described in 2005 as a proposal with a pre-engineering study.