Heating or Cooling Buildings with PV Walls in Reunion Island

In Reunion Island, many buildings have been equipped with PV panels on their roofs in order to produce electricity. These PV systems were built to increase the penetration of renewable energies in the public electricity grid and so reduce greenhouse effect gases emissions. This type of installation was designed just in order to produce electricity but many works have shown that PV systems integrated to walls can also cool or heat the buildings. This paper presents how PV systems integrated to building can be used to help meeting energy needs in two microclimates of the island by cooling or heating the building where it is installed. To show this, a building simulation code able to model BIPV buildings is used.