Ma Wan School Project

Model of Ma Wan Primary School

as-built Ma Wan Primary School (currently known as Kei Wai (Ma Wan) Primary School) taken in April 2004

Students of the school attending lessons about PV

Facts

An introduction of this system can be found in this brochure as well as this fact sheet. Both were prepared before the system was completed, therefore the electricity generation figures are outdated, please refer to online data or this table for most update figures.

This BIPV school project, which was sponsored by Innovation and Technology Fund and CLP Research Institute, explores different PV technologies as integrated building components in Hong Kong's built environment. The research is applied to Ma Wan school (now known as Kei Wai (Ma Wan) Primary School) - an ASD designed primary school in four different demonstration installations. It has developed the standard Hong Kong PV module to suit the HK School Planning Grid (7.5m x 9.6m) that complies with Hong Kong's wind load codes. A Building Energy Management System (BEMS) was also developed in the project to maximize the PV electricity utilization in each classroom. The system has efficiently managed the energy consumption by supervising passive and active mechanical systems with occupancy and building load. The PV installations provide thermal buffer in addition on generating electricity.

Achievement

This installation is the first non-government BIPV system with grid-connection. The experiences have also contributed to establishing the Technical Guidelines on grid connection of small-scale renewable energy power systems which was published by EMSD of HKSAR Government.

The project has identified several non-technical barriers with local utility, as a result standard grid-connection fee and insurance of PV system have been offered by the utility. Split responsibility of maintenance has also been an issue since the maintenance responsibility of the BIPV system and the school structure belong to different parties.

Potential educational benefits of this system have been proved by overwhelming responses from different parties including teachers, students and the local community. Numerous educational activities on renewable energy have been developed as a result of this project.

Research papers relating to this research project have been published as an effort to contribute to local and international knowledge in PV.

For more information of achievement this project please refer to the project's final research report.

The four BIPV installations included in the project comprise of:

CIS monitor roof

Glass embedded PV rooflight

a-Si Canopy

a-Si Facade

Electricity Generation per annum (kWh)

33,757kWh represents 8.71% of the total electrical energy consumption by the school in the same period. The yield would depend on climate, sun-angle and orientation. A summary of electricity generation of different systems can also be found in this table.