Dubai: With his perennial white casual attire and ponytail, Christos Haritonides, CEO of The Cool Group, is the epitome of coolness when the temperature outside his Al Diyafa Road office in Satwa is shooting up to an all-time high.
Corporate firms and individuals in the UAE and the Gulf are increasingly turning to this Cypriot-Canadian entrepreneur in a bid to find energy-efficient, environment-friendly and innovative outdoor cooling solutions.
Any resident or visitor in Dubai cannot miss his cool touch, whether it is outside Dubai International Airport's Terminals 1 and 3, along the Marina Walk in Dubai, at the Wild Wadi water park, or attending outdoor events such as the Rugby Sevens or the concert on Yas Island during the Formula One races.
His cool touch can also be sensed when dining at one of the dozens of restaurants outside Dubai Mall.
Mission
The UAE — where the traditional wind tower was used to make the home environment more comfortable — is now turning to technology to cool its outdoor living as well as commercial and leisure areas. The irony is not lost on Haritonides, who launched his cooling mission 10 years ago in Dubai.
Although trained in electrical engineering, Haritonides spent many years in Canada and US working in the hospitality sector before he said he encountered at close quarters the benefits of cooling systems from Mist and Cool, USA.
"It was in the arid climate of places like California, Nevada and Arizona that this technology was perfected, developed and patented," he said.
He said he remembered taking his seven-year-old son to Disney World where some of the outdoor areas were being cooled using these systems.
Decades later, he brought the Mist and Cool USA franchise to the UAE and the Middle East and even though the initial years were spent educating people and organisations about this novel concept, the effort has been worth it, he felt.
The company is now opening a branch in Abu Dhabi soon called Cool Shop to cater to the growth in the capital.
Haritonides said the Cool Group's expertise was not only sought to help cool palaces and public areas. There was great demand for "mist-scaping" along with water features and special artistic elements to be used during spectacular outdoor events like concerts and product launches.
As Haritonides explained, evaporative cooling or flash evaporation was a natural way to cool the air and had been used for many years. Heat is taken from the air to convert liquid to vapour resulting in a reduction in ambient temperature.
This could be done in two ways. Highly pressurised water goes through a special misting nozzle and the resulting ultra-fine mist interacted with the air to cool the environment. Another method was to direct air though a wet filter as in the "desert cooler". A cycle of cooling is maintained using the right combination of temperature, humidity and air movement, he said.
Haritonides said he was excited about the possibility of using this technology to make a difference in our quality of life. It could even save lives during building fires or motor accidents in tunnels.
A misting system installed in a high-rise building or a road tunnel could kick in at the time of a fire or accident, to suppress smoke, fumes and dust, and reduce the heat.
The Cool Group has installed a misting line in the tunnel along Salam Street in Abu Dhabi. Such systems will become mandatory in new buildings, he said.
On the labour welfare front, cooling solutions could be used to keep the rest area for workers cool at outdoor worksites.
"For example, we are now working with Eppco to cool their petrol stations by using misting fans on each pump," he said.
Haritonides said the Cool Group had been asked to provide custom designs for cooling solutions at four stations on the Saudi Railway Organisation's Haramain High-Speed Rail, which is to provide a rail link between the holy cities of Makkah, Madinah and Jeddah.
There are proposals for pathway cooling on jogging/cycling tracks along Abu Dhabi Corniche and in Qatar, where many innovative techniques such as using chilled sea water and solar panels are to be tried out.
Of particular significance is the wind tower concept being tried out at Masdar City in Abu Dhabi to cool a large hall by allowing mist-cooled air to flow into the area using a computer-monitored system.
Air style: Cooling solution
Evaporative cooling systems do not use freons or any other chemicals, which ensures the natural purity of the outdoor environment. Power consumption of a misting system or an evaporative cooler is considerably less than that used in conventional airconditioning.
Additional benefits besides environmental cooling are dust suppression, odour control and the provision of an insect-free environment
With temperatures across the world predicted to rise, existing airconditioning systems designed a few years ago in thousands of buildings, are now working at full capacity, and are not expected to be able to cope.
"What we can do is pre-cool the air that goes into these chillers which are already installed in buildings," Haritonides said.
"This will help to save power, increase efficiency and prolong the life of these airconditioning systems."
