Heating, emissions and the Okotoks experiment

Event date: 2005-04-01

The arithmetic behind the project

Around 80 per cent of residential emissions in Canada come from warming rooms and water. Cut that, and most of a house's footprint goes with it. Drake Landing's planners estimated about five tonnes less greenhouse gas per home each year, which across 52 homes comes to roughly 260 tonnes annually. The community was also expected to use about 30 per cent less energy than conventional housing.

Those two figures are linked. The lower energy use and the lower emissions both come from the same source, solar heat carried over from summer.

A European model on a new continent

Neighbourhood-scale solar heating with seasonal storage had been tried in parts of Europe. Supporters hoped Okotoks would show it could work in an Alberta winter and that other towns would copy it. At the time the subdivision was believed to be the first of its kind in North America. Collector layout is covered on the solar collection page.

Heat is a large share of the energy a Canadian home uses, so it is a sensible place to start. Building a whole subdivision also let one storage field serve every house. Details of the pilot's partners are on the partners page.

Did it cut emissions?

Operations suggest it did. Monitoring reported a solar share of 97 per cent in 2012 and 100 per cent in the 2015-16 season, well above the original target. The community is now closed, though, and its homes have returned to gas furnaces. The wider how it works guide explains the technology behind those numbers.

The measured results remain the project's most useful legacy for anyone planning low-carbon heating.

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