Dubai, UAE: With population on the rise, energy consumption has increased globally; and so has the awareness to produce energy-efficient products. In the recent years, the United Arab Emirates has adopted many technological advancements to achieve its energy reduction target before 2030. This is especially necessary as air conditioning is used extensively across the country, and is, therefore, the biggest consumer of energy.

By adopting better air conditioning approaches, it is not difficult to save energy in buildings, says Eqbal Al Yousuf, the President of Al Yousuf Group. However, he points out that the trend these days has been to use big air conditioning systems rather than small systems, and this, he adds, is not a good strategy.

“We have cases of buildings with 60 TR or 70 TR of air conditioning, where the entire capacity kicks in even if you have only one person in the building,” he says, before asking, “Which is more efficient, 2 TR or 60 TR?”

Yousuf says that there is a need to change one’s beliefs or approaches with respect to the use of air conditioning systems. To drive home his point, he cites the example of the PC industry, which started off from mainframe computers to PCs; and has now evolved into much smaller devices, such as the mobile phones and smaller wearables.

“I believe small is pretty,” says Yousuf.

Just as networking is the norm in PCs today, he believes that one day, the industry will go back to smaller air conditioning systems, and maybe soon, software will enable the networking of air conditioning systems. “I see software control and IT playing a big part. We don’t need dumb ACs; we need smart ACs,” remarks Yousuf.