The Drake Landing Solar Community is a one of a kind community located in the town of Okotoks, Alberta, Canada sets a wonderful example of sustainable lifestyle, providing over 90% of annual heating and hot water needs for homes, despite being situated in a cold Alberta location where winter temperatures can reach -33 degrees. There are 800 solar panels located throughout the community on garage roofs, and they produce 1.5 mega-watts of thermal power during a summer day and supply heat to the district heating system. The heated water is then transferred to underground borehole thermal energy storage (BTES) system through a series of pipes.
The 52 home communities are able to collect and store enough energy from the sun during the summer.The ground storage temperatures reach 80 degrees and it can be drawn from throughout the winter to provide heat and hot water.The solar panels absorb the solar energy during the day time and heats the Glycol Solution that travels through the collector loop and reaches an underground heat exchanger within the community’s centralized energy centre. Ranging from 1,492 to 1,664 square feet these homes are insulated to a level 30% higher than the average home in Canada in order to keep the energy needs low enough to work with the system. If this system is scaled down to a single family home it would not work as efficiently simply because too much heat would be lost, but it’s perfect for 52 households as it is feasible.It stores heat throughout the summer and then relies on banked heat during winter.
Solar heating is a more exciting prospect as large percentages of homes use it, in comparison with solar generation of electricity. The homes will be certified to Natural Resources Canada’s R-2000 standard for energy efficiency and the Built Green Alberta program. Till then we can hope that other communities would take a prompt from this and take more green initiatives.
Via: Inhabitat
