Think Alberta in Canada and you’ll probably think “COLD”!  Well you’d be right… in fact, we’re talking -33°C in the Winter style cold!  The likes of which most of us here in the UK will never experience.  However, a new community in Alberta is managing to produce 90% of it’s annual heating demand from Solar Energy alone.

The development of 52 houses at an average size of 147m² have been insulated to a level 30% above the average home in Canada in order to keep the energy needs low.  Around 800 solar panels have been fitted to the roof of each house and completely covering all of the garages in the development enabling them to collect 1.5MW of solar energy in a heat storage fluid.  This glycol based fluid is then transferred to a central energy centre where it is stored.

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