North America’s First Solar Community
SAIC played a major role in helping a small Canadian community become the first solar community in North America. The 52-home Drake Landing Solar Community in Okotoks, Alberta, uses a solar-thermal design concept that SAIC Canada helped to create.
The system uses the summer sun to heat water and stores the heat underground for use in the winter. In addition to solar collectors on the garages to collect heat for space heating, each home has a discrete solar collection system on its roof that provides about 60 percent of household hot water.
Recognized as the "greenest community in Canada, maybe the world" by the Canadian prime minister, Drake Landing has been honored with several awards, including the Emerald Award for Climate Change from the Alberta Emerald Foundation and the Gold Award from the International Awards for Livable Communities program.
A Passion to Find the Right Solution
Bill Wong, P.Eng.
SAIC Engineer
"In the long run," says SAIC's Bill Wong, speaking about the potential for solar thermal housing projects, "homeowners may be protected from crazy escalations in the price of natural gas. "
Making an entire subdivision run on a combination of solar and geothermal is just one of our many jobs.
We're Science Applications International Corporation — 45,000 smart, dedicated people who have the deepest understanding of their fields and a passion to find the right solution. People like engineer Bill Wong. Smart people solving hard problems. Contact us today »