Microalgae bio-reactive façade: Open data for nation-scale production potential assessment

This work combines microalgae culture numerical modeling and open big data from the French weather forecast agency and the French government to evaluate the annual deployment potential for microalgae biofaçade over France’s mainland territory. After data curation, three scenarii were evaluated. The annual production potential offered by new buildings (offices, retail buildings, hotels, industrial buildings, and state buildings) lies between +28.9 ± 3.7 and +202.6 ± 17.4 ton per year for the conservative and the optimistic scenario, respectively. It corresponds to producing 6,100 to 62,000 microalgae biofaçade units, which is more than enough to sustain year-round continuous production. Analyzing the host building type revealed that retail buildings ( e.g. , malls) are the most favorable places for the technology, followed by state buildings and offices. Finally, in depth analysis of the results showed that façade orientation is the first predictor of the system performance while its geographical location in France is only a modulator of it. • Biofaçades are considered a potential synergy between buildings and microalgae. • Modeling (weather, illumination, cell growth) was used to describe system behavior. • 10-year weather data and French government open data are curated and coupled. • For each newly constructed building potential microalgae production is calculated. • Results suggest that large-scale deployment is industrially relevant.