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Facilitate air quality monitoring in schools
Sauve’s city council quickly identified three problems that led to the need to improve the school’s indoor air quality:
- Energy efficiency in buildings
- Preventive maintenance in the industry
- White label design for historical brands in heating
When this observation was made in 2020, the Deputy Mayor, Mr. Lionel Rouge, whom we interviewed, was able to react with a willingness to address the issues with a 360° and scalable solution.
Its objective was to ensure a healthy environment for children, school and educational staff. It is known that properly ventilating a room can considerably reduce the level of CO2, which accumulates very quickly in a classroom and impacts the students’ ability to concentrate and learn.
But it also allows, to comply with the regulations already in force since 2018, which have hardened with the pandemic and the end of containment in June 2020. These rules aim to establish thresholds and best practices to promote concentration and facilitate student learning by optimizing the ventilation period. At the same time, Mr. Rouge was keen to contribute to the well-being and comfort of users, which is an integral part of the town’s policy.
Air quality in a school: the context and the issues
The commune of Sauve is a dynamic commune with a population in constant growth since the beginning of the years 2000, the community counts more than 120 associations! It is a city of character with a developed heritage, which knows how to make its territory attractive for visitors and inhabitants, thanks to the investment in various services: culture, education, good living, leisure, environment…
Since 2018, there is already a regulatory air quality analysis and monitoring system in place within schools to identify possible pollutants, by accredited organizations, during the school year.
Did you know that?
We spend more than 80% of our time in enclosed spaces and for children this rate rises to 90%, with the time spent in the classroom. Statistically, children are twice as likely to contract respiratory diseases as adults. Finally, indoor air is eight times more polluted than outdoor air, especially with the ambient CO2 level.
Numbers, which make you dizzy. 😵💫
An ideal ppm level is around 800 ppm (parts per million), from 1000 ppm, the CO2 level starts to trigger discomfort and beyond 1500, proven risks for the health of the occupants. To develop the right solution for the right use case, you need to take into account: the size of a room, the number of occupants, the duration of presence and the frequency of ventilation.
According to a study commissioned by the Canadian government in 2020, airing a room 3 times a day can reduce a room’s CO2 levels by a third. 📋
“From June 2020, students are allowed to return to school since it is the end of the containment, and we are quickly faced with the legitimate fear of parents, facing the transmission of the virus. An extremely strict sanitary protocol has been added. A real problem for our school and educational staff on a daily basis.
Lionel ROUGE, Deputy Mayor of Sauve, in charge of culture, education and heritage.
Thus, the town hall of Sauve, with its connected solution avoids the risks such as: the propagation of the viruses, the tiredness, the headaches, the dizziness, the fall of the concentration and the effectiveness. Prolonged and repeated exposure to high levels of CO2 can even trigger irritation and allergies, which can lead to asthma.
Air quality in a school: how to set up indoor air quality measurement easily?
It is essential to measure CO2, humidity and temperature in real time. ” It is by measuring that we are able to optimize! ” says Mr. Rouge. This way, hygiene, protection and energy efficiency are combined. In France, grants are available to assist and finance air quality monitoring projects for schools, health care facilities and public facilities.
In a webinar dedicated to air quality for communities, the Deputy Mayor of Sauve explained how to benefit from a grant from the State to implement the IoT solution. In the public school of the commune of Sauve, a dozen connected CO2 sensors have been deployed on an operated LoRa network (these sensors also measure the humidity and temperature).
✔️Pour the measurement, the city council has deployed Nexelec’s CO2 Carbon sensor, with close sampling to improve reactivity, high measurement accuracy (calibrated by an EN 17025 / Cofrac accredited laboratory) and equipped with an alert system using a warning light, depending on the criticality.
✔️Pour the action, the city hall can manage its sensors directly on its SoM2M#IoT interface.
✔️Pour data supervision, the city council can visualize its data and alerts directly on the SoDATA#Viz platform.
The little plus
Rouge says the sensor is fun for the students, who are excited to get involved and are the first alerters when it’s time to air out the room.🚸
With energy expenses increasing fourfold by 2023 (due to rising prices), the municipality is looking more closely at deploying connected sensors to improve its energy performance, identify sources of overconsumption and avoid wastage, which is very costly to the community.
“In addition to the energy conservation plan, we are thinking about deploying sensors in community halls and other public places to improve energy efficiency. In addition, we must be on the lookout for the consequences and challenges of climate change, and take action at our level, to limit our environmental footprint.”
Lionel ROUGE, Deputy Mayor of Sauve, in charge of culture, education and heritage.
Identity card
Activity: French township
Geographic scope:
located in the Gard department,
in Occitania near Nîmes and the metropolis of Montpellier.
Scope
located in the department of Gard, in Occitania.
Objective
Develop projects for the ecological transition and the well-being of its inhabitants.
Result
Implementation of a real-time solution to create a regular ventilation protocol and optimize air quality in schools.
Our partner on this project
The results
The Sauve Town Hall Deputy explained that, prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, school staff aired their classrooms twice a day: before and after classes. By measuring and monitoring air quality in real time, we were able to create a regular protocol and adapt school staff schedules accordingly. “ This protocol has proved very effective, so we’ve extended air quality monitoring to the daycare room and catering hall. ” he added.
Synox is a French creator of IoT solutions.
As a pioneer in IoT for more than 15 years, we facilitate the work of our 600 customers (including 200 local authorities) in France, Europe (and worldwide), by designing high value-added IoT ecosystems: powerful and invisible, sustainable and responsible, adapted to their needs, tailored to their uses. Guided by its spirit of adventure and its crew, Synox puts people and the planet first, innovation at the forefront and service to the French.
The commune of Sauve is a French commune located in the center of the department of Gare, in Occitanie region. With a population of about 2000 inhabitants (62 inhabitants per km²) and a 15% increase in population since 1999, the municipality has been able to implement actions in line with the evolution of the city and its inhabitants. The community wants to activate levers to make itself dynamic and attractive: good living, education, sports, culture, leisure, access to healthcare, heritage and the environment.
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