The world’s largest geothermal lagoon will be made at Charlevoix. This is a 45-minute drive from Quebec in Canada. The open-air lagoon will have a heating system that is still awaiting its patent. It is expected to keep the waters warm at 102 degrees Fahrenheit (39 degrees Celsius). This will be kept up even during the winters when temperatures drop below 32 degrees Fahrenheit (O degrees Celsius), New Atlas reported.
The project is called geoLagoon and it takes inspiration from the geothermal lagoons in Iceland that are globally popular, and its owner and CEO, Louis Massicotte’s vision comprises four such lagoons to be built in Canada.
The water body at the lagoon will come up at Charlevoix and span over 130,000 sq. feet (12,000 square meters). Several chalets will be built around the lagoon to make a village that will camouflage with the natural surroundings.
These cottages will be up for sale and could be used to stay at the lagoon or rent out to visitors for vacations. Besides this, people who visit the site will also have access to art galleries, ski resorts, golf facilities, dining, and whale-watching experiences.
The chalets will have photovoltaic cladding that will trap solar energy to execute the heat pumps. Underneath the base of the lagoon, there will be a giant thermal reservoir powered by an energy ecosystem. This ecosystem will comprise geothermal, biomass, and photovoltaics along with solar heating systems, the patent for which, as stated above, is pending now.
A sustainability energy firm in Canada conducted a feasibility study on it. It has been confirmed that the project can meet its energy requirements using renewable sources as expected. Massicotte also aims to deploy further optimizations like sewer heat recovery technologies that could make the village an energy provider to the grid in the future.
“There is a strong potential that the geoLagon project will produce more energy than it consumes, which brings the opportunity to provide surplus electricity to the surrounding community,” Massicotte told New Atlas. For now, the lagoon and the surrounding village will be able to cover its energy demands without drawing power from the grid.
The project’s construction is divided into three phases. The first is where 150 solar-powered chalets will be constructed at the site. After this, the construction of the geothermal lagoon will begin, and the construction of the remaining 300 chalets will be done in the third phase.
Once completed, the geoLagoon will outshine the Icelandic lagoon that has an area of 93,000 sq. feet (8,700 sq m).
After Charlevoix, geoLagoon has plans for three more such lagoons at Laurentides, Lanaudière, and the Eastern Townships. Construction at the First site is slated to begin in March 2023 and will roughly take 1 18 months.