Drake Landing Solar Community: Financial Summary and Lessons Learned
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 12th year of operation in 2019. The demonstration project successfully illustrated the technical feasibility of solar seasonal energy storage with a high solar fraction in a northern climate. Over the course of this project, from design, to construction, to commissioning, to operation and performance monitoring, much has been learned about this technology application in Canada. Through our on-going performance monitoring project, a number of learning points were identified that could inform the development and implementation of future similar projects. This paper will review the project financial results, key learning points and discuss design improvements (what we would do differently), stakeholder engagement and operating models for future projects.