Drake Landing

Liz Reese and Lyle McRae didn't need a sales pitch to convince them to buy a house in Canada's first solar community.

"We found it on the Internet from our home in Seattle, and bought it sight unseen," says Reese, who recently moved with her husband into Drake Landing, a new 52-house solar housing development in Okotoks, just south of Calgary.

The Drake Landing project is harnessing the sun's power with 800 solar collectors on garage roofs to provide an estimated 90 per cent of space heating and 60 per cent of domestic hot water for each house.

The single-family homes are also built to R-2000 and Built Green Alberta^TM Gold standards.  To meet this rating, superior insulation and windows, energy- and water-efficient appliances and non-toxic and recycled building materials must be used.

Normally, captured solar energy is lost if not used almost immediately.  The Okotoks housing development is the first in North America to store solar heat in an underground reservoir. This heat is then released in the winter for space heating.

Every Drake Landing home is expected to cut greenhouse gas emissions by five tonnes every year and is at least 30 per cent more efficient than a conventional new home.

C3 provided strategic assistance to the main project partners during the development of the project.