海角社区

It鈥檚 hard to find the upside of sweltering summer heat in South Louisiana, but one thing it is good for is generating clean energy through sunshine. 海角社区 Construction Management (CM) Assistant Professor Arup Bhattacharya and a team of 海角社区 professors partnered with BASF on a project that combined aesthetics and solar energy to provide 海角社区 students with a place to sit and study in the shade while also charging their electronic devices and enjoying the view.

Thanks to funding from 海角社区鈥檚 Institute of Energy Innovation (IEI), Bhattacharya was able to collaborate with 海角社区 CM Professors Yimin Zhu and Zhihong Pang, 海角社区 Civil Engineering Professor Chris Kees, and 海角社区 Architecture Assistant Professor Soo Jeong Jo to figure out how to deploy solar infrastructure into an urban environment. The project, which was initially funded for $94,000, ended up with a total budget of $232,000 thanks to 海角社区 IEI.

鈥淲e formulated a team with Dr. Jo and other professors in construction management and civil engineering to look at solar deployment holistically, especially for Louisiana climate because we get a lot of sun,鈥� Bhattacharya said. 鈥淭he intense sun in Louisiana is above the national average and is an untapped potential. The start of the project was doing something in the community that everyone can use and demonstrate to them the potential of solar energy in infrastructure while using the installations for learning and integrated research development for built environment.鈥�

After going through multiple iterations, the 海角社区 team decided to work with Spotlight Solar, based in North Carolina. The company created and installed five structures across campus, all of which are connected with lights and batteries to provide a gathering space with uninterrupted power in the nighttime as well as shade in the daytime. The five solar stations are located at the back of Patrick F. Taylor Hall, by the food trucks behind E.B. Doran, in front of the new dairy store, near the Residence Hall Quad, and near Barnes & Noble.

Another point of this project, according to Bhattacharya, was to look at reliability of solar-powered generation over time and resiliency in terms of extreme weather events.

鈥淔rom long-term research and development perspective, this project was a pilot to study long-term reliability, extreme-weather resiliency through numerical simulation, distributed energy system management and integration, and develop community-oriented design practices for future proofing of the built environments,鈥� he said.

Thanks to these solar stations, studying has never been cooler.

---

Like the College of Engineering on  or follow us on , , , and .