Drake Landing back on target: the 2010 milestone

Event date: 2010-05-26

The milestone and the catch-up

The first two years had missed the annual targets by 10 to 15 percentage points. Adjustments to operation, including a lower temperature for the water sent to the houses, closed that gap. Natural Resources Canada, which had put $2 million into the project, treated the result as getting back on track.

The hope was to pass the five-year goal of 90 per cent by a couple of points, though weather would decide that. Comparable seasonal systems in Europe typically met 50 to 60 per cent of their communities' heating.

How the heat moved

A glycol loop ran through roughly 800 collectors on the garage roofs. A heat exchanger passed that energy to water, which went underground to warm the soil around the pipes and then on to the houses. December 2009 alone brought 600 gigajoules to the community.

The solar collection page covers the panels, and district heating explains how the water reached each house.

Life on the street

Heating was billed at a flat $60 a month at the time. The first households had arrived in June 2007, and by 2010 neighbours were marking each summer solstice with a barbecue. Project literature projected about 1.5 tonnes of greenhouse gas per home a year by 2012, against roughly seven for an average house. More on the buildings is on the homes page.

What came next

The 90 per cent hope proved conservative. Monitoring later recorded a 97 per cent solar share by 2012 and 100 per cent in the 2015-16 heating season. From about 2020 the system suffered deterioration and maintenance problems, decommissioning began in 2024, and most homes moved to natural-gas furnaces. For the current state of the field and Energy Centre, check with the Town of Okotoks or ATCO. See performance results for the year-by-year figures.

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