Bardzour
Bardzour, agrivoltaics at the heart of a detention center
In Reunion creole, Bardzour means ‘breaking dawn’. The Bardzour solar farm is the first of its generation to include Lithium-ion battery storage with a capacity of 9 MWh. The commissioning of this 9 MWp plant in 2014 was a genuine world first for this level of power! The storage helps support the power grid thanks to a stable and continuous supply of energy, thus cancelling out the intermittency effects associated with weather conditions.
It incorporates 8.4 MWp of ground-based panels located in the no-man’s-land of the detention center in the municipality of Le Port in the northwest of the island, and 0.6 MWp installed on 6,000 m² of greenhouses.
Bardzour is also an innovative social project, insomuch as it includes an ambitious prisoner rehabilitation program: during the construction phase, more than 15,000 hours were devoted to training to help the social reinsertion of prisoners nearing the end of their sentences, providing them with the skills required to build photovoltaic units.
A project with spin-offs
Bardzour is a project that has received several awards: it notably won the European Engagement Award during Sustainable Energy Week in June 2019, but was also a prizewinner in the “My positive impact” campaign run by the Nicolas Hulot Foundation for Nature and Mankind.
The project was also featured in the "Demain" (Tomorrow) documentary by Mélanie Laurent and Cyril Dion.
Our CSR commitments
The Bardzour plant is located within the grounds of the Le Port detention center, one of the islands largest such centers.
Professional training
In conjunction with the penitentiary teams, the inmates and Agriterra, our agricultural partner, Akuo has put a training and professional reintegration program in place for prisoners nearing their release date. These inmates receive 25 hours of farm laborer training a week directly on the site until they are released. During this training, these men and women acquire the skills they need to be a farm laborer (preparing the soil, planting, laying irrigation, harvesting, packaging, etc.)
Professional reintegration
Indeed, several of them have been given an opportunity, following their sentence, to be hired by Agriterra to work at other Akuo agrivoltaic locations in Reunion, and notably the Cèdres and Ligne des 400 sites.
Positive territorial impacts
Bardzour perfectly embodies Akuo’s original vision: implement profoundly positive projects for territories, from both an energy and a human perspective.
