Drake Landing Solar Community: 10 Years of Operation
Abstract
Drake Landing Solar Community is a Canadian solar district heating system with seasonal thermal storage. The demonstration project, designed to achieve over 90% solar fraction, was commissioned in the summer of 2007, reaching its 10th year of operation in 2017. The present work describes the system and its operation, presenting simulated and measured performance indicators for 10 years of operation, together with relevant operational data. Monitoring has proven the design simulations to be generally very accurate. During the last 5 years, the measured average solar fraction was 96%, including 100% achieved during the 2015-2016 heating season. The ability to easily access and view detailed system operating data combined with the ability to compare actual operation against predicted has proven to be extremely valuable for the successful commissioning and the efficient operation of energy systems at DLSC. Overall, the system has successfully demonstrated the reliable operation of a high solar fraction solar district heating system with seasonal thermal storage in a very cold climate. Although that Drake Landing system is too small to be economically competitive with the current very low price of natural gas in North America, subsequent feasibility studies show that larger systems of similar design can deliver solar energy at about half the cost compared to Drake Landing.