Passive cooling is considered as an alternative technology to avoid unwanted heat gains, to reduce urban heat islands and to generate cooling potential for buildings (limiting air-conditioning energy). According to materials and surface treatments, the roof can represent to be a major heat gain source from opaque elements of the building fabric, heating up the outer surface and increasing heat flow by conduction. This paper presents low-cost new radiative materials (1 is not an element of/m(2)) allowing to limit heat gains during diurnal cycle for hot seasons. To evaluate the relevance of these new substrates, their reflective UV-VIS-IR behavior are studied and compared to classical roofed materials available in industrial and developing countries. A 48 m(2) experimental roof having different surfaces (plate steel sheets, fiber cement, terra cotta tiles and corrugated sheets) allows to determine the temperature ratio 6 between uncoated and coated materials. Up to 34% surface temperature gains are obtained for white coated CS, 25% for FC and similar to 18% for TCT and PSS. According to uncoated materials for a surface temperature T-0 = 60 degrees C, simulations showed that the low-cost white opaque reflective roofs (50 m(2)) presented in this study would reduce cooling energy consumption by 26-49%. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.