Technical reports and papers on Drake Landing
Between 2007 and 2019 the project produced monthly energy summaries, a handful of conference papers, brochures and a case study. This page describes what each group covered and what the verified results were.
Monthly energy summaries, 2007 to 2015
The largest group was a series of short monthly summaries commissioned by Natural Resources Canada. Each carried an energy flow diagram and a table of the month: sunlight reaching the collectors, heat collected, heat moved into and out of storage, natural gas and electricity used, and the resulting solar fraction. Surviving file names point to months in 2007, 2008, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015, so the run was never complete in this archive. The numbers on performance results were taken from two of them, October 2007 and May 2012.
Early performance data, spring 2007
A separate note covered March and April 2007, the first weeks after the Energy Centre started up. It is the earliest operating evidence the project published, written while the underground store was still cold and the system was finding its settings. The Energy Centre page explains the equipment that was being tested.
Conference papers, 2011 to 2019
Papers were presented at International Solar Energy Society world congresses in 2011, 2017 and 2019, and at an International Energy Agency Solar Heating and Cooling conference in 2012. The 2011 and 2012 papers reported the project's early operating record, including the 97 percent solar share reached by 2012. The monitoring record later reached 100 percent in the 2015-16 heating season. How the heat storage behaves is described in borehole storage.
Brochures, a case study and newsletters
Public brochures existed in English and French and summarised the neighbourhood for visitors. A groundbreaking case study from the mid-2010s told the project's story for a wider industry audience. The reports section also held a newsletter folder whose contents could not be recovered. The launch-era material is covered on the backgrounder page.
Award documents
Two documents from June 2006 recorded recognition for the Town of Okotoks and for Sterling Homes. The wider list is on the awards page.
Finding originals today
This site does not host the documents. Natural Resources Canada and its CanmetENERGY research centre are the likeliest holders of the technical reports, and the contact page explains who to ask. The live data that supplied the monthly figures is described under dashboard.
Quick answers
Who prepared the monthly energy reports?
An engineering consultancy prepared them for Natural Resources Canada. Each month had its own short summary with a diagram and a data table.
What did the papers conclude?
They reported a rising solar share: 97 percent of space heating by 2012 and 100 percent in the 2015-16 heating season, against a design target of about 90 percent.
Are the old PDF links still available?
Not reliably. dlsc.ca does not host the files, so ask Natural Resources Canada or the project partners.