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Solar School Program in Reunion Island
Abstract
Because of its particular geographic situation and relatively high altitude (3069 meters), Reunion
Island is composed of a very large amount of micro-climates which have a direct impact on buildings'
comfort, energy consumptions and renewable energy system efficiency.
In Réunion Island, the industrial engineering laboratory is involved in the regional solar school
program. Its aim is to gather some local construction actors (city technical offices, architects, civil
engineers, specialized university team research, meteorological services), for a better knowledge transfer,
and a better environment understanding. The main objective is to rehabilitate primary school in a
bioclimatic and low energy consumption way, taking into account climatic conditions.
Three primary schools corresponding to three particular micro-climates have been studied and
simulated to evaluate main comfort targets (from a thermal, ventilation, humidity, lighting, and acoustic
points of view). Architects then worked considering the technical prescriptions for renovation projects. An
internal and external instrumentation was installed before and is planned to be reinforced after the
renovation to validate these prescriptions.
This program illustrates precisely what has to be done in each building project:
- Meteorological data acquisition (hourly data for simulation software and for renewable energy
options analysis and optimizations).
- Thermal comfort simulations taking into account natural ventilation, heating or cooling needs,
condensation or other pathologies risks.
- And finally, an instrumentation campaign for all targets evaluation.
Citation
David, M.; Adelard, L. (2004). Solar School Program in Reunion Island. Energy Systems Laboratory (http://esl.tamu.edu); Texas A&M University (http://www.tamu.edu). Available electronically from https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /5068.