“It’s a little-known fact, but the yearly solar radiation that southern Alberta receives is comparable to that of Miami,” says Tyler Stevenson, project manager at United Communities, a Calgary-based developer. “So not only is Alberta blessed with an abundance of oil and gas, but we get lots of sunshine too.”

Enter the Drake Landing Solar Community, a newly-built neighbourhood in Okotoks by United Communities, and the first of its kind in North America. It harnesses solar power to provide the 52 homes in the development with 90 per cent of their space heating and 50 per cent of their water heating needs.

“In Canada, home heating is a large contributor to our totally greenhouse gas output,” says Stevenson. “Therefore, if we are going to reduce greenhouse gases this is a logical place to start.” He cites Canada’s commitment to the Kyoto Accord to reduce greenhouse gases as one of the reasons why the project was conceived.

While the average Canadian home produces between six and seven tonnes of greenhouse gases per year, the solar heating system allows each home in Drake Landing to save about five tonnes annually. And since southern Alberta is one of the sunniest places in Canada, where better to build an innovative project such as this?

Stevenson says the project was first conceived when the town of Okotoks was approached by Natural Resources Canada to see if it wanted to participate in a demonstration solar project. “The town was making headlines with their ‘Sustainable Okotoks’ approach and had dabbled in solar heating with their public pool,” he says. United Communities was the largest landowner in the area and jumped on the opportunity to be a part of the project.

Although there are several solar communities in Europe, there is no other system quite like Drake Landing in the world. The detached garages of all the homes hold solar panels which use the energy from the summer sunshine to heat a glycol solution in insulated pipes tucked under the roof’s overhang. The glycol travels to the community’s Energy Centre, where the heat is then transferred to water. This hot water travels through pipes deep underground, warming the earth around it to as much as 80 degrees Celsius. The heat is then stored until it is needed during the cold winter months, when the hot water is circulated to each home and used to heat the air as needed.

Homeowners set the temperature of their homes to whatever level they choose and can relax, knowing that all this was done without using a particle of oil or natural gas. The system is known as seasonal solar energy storage, and Drake Landing is the first community in the world to reach the 90 per cent space-heating goal. All in all, it is a very efficient system that is sure to be copied the world over.

All the homes in the Drake Landing Solar Community were built by Sterling Homes, and other than the solar panels on the roofs of the detached garages, all look like normal single-family dwellings. Ranging in size from 1,492 to 1,664 square-feet, most were built as three-bedroom homes with all the features you would expect from an estate home. In addition to using solar energy for heat, all the homes were built to meet Natural Resources Canada’s R-2000 and Built Green Alberta’s Gold standards for energy efficiency. Water conservation has also been made a priority in the community by making water efficient fixtures and appliances standard, providing a rain barrel to every home and designing landscaping to use as little water as possible.

Being situated in Okotoks, residents are fortunate to have all the amenities of that town as well as the conveniences of Calgary a mere 15-minutes’ drive away. Drake Landing also includes park space and nearby public pathways.

Stevenson says that the most rewarding part of being involved in building Drake Landing was the knowledge that this project will reduce the greenhouse gas and that United Communities plans to use the experiences it gained in developing the solar community into the future.

“It is a truly ‘made in Canada’ solution for our climate and environment,” he says, but adds that in order for similar communities to be built in the future, Canadians have to speak out. “Now that such a project exists, it is imperative for the general public to continue to seek out this technology for it to become mainstream.”

Judging from the positive response to Drake Landing so far, solar communities could be the future of homebuilding in Alberta.