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Award Winner

Recognised for its energy efficiency and environmental sustainability, the Airbitat Smart Cooler won the ASEAN Energy Award (Special Submission Category) in 2018 – the region’s highest recognitionasean  of excellence and innovation for energy efficiency efforts in buildings. 

You might have seen some of these rectangular air coolers near you, when you dined alfresco at CHIJMES or Clarke Quay Singapore. Or you could have wondered why queuing up at Singapore Mandai Zoo remained a “cool experience”. This is thanks to cool air streams of as low as 24 degree Celsius jetted out by the Airbitat Smart Cooler, the world’s coldest portable cooler delivering energy-efficient cooling.

With cities getting increasingly crowded, space is becoming a precious commodity. City planners, land developers and retail space owners are finding ways to make urban spaces even more useful and attractive for their customers and stakeholders. Particularly in spaces subject to hot and humid conditions, one of the urban challenges faced is to find ways to make it cooler to conduct activities in these spaces, while keeping costs low and still being environmentally sustainable.

The Airbitat Smart Cooler was invented to address this urban challenge. Recognised for its energy efficiency and environmental sustainability, it won the ASEAN Energy Award (Special Submission Category) in 2018 – the region’s highest recognition of excellence and innovation for energy efficiency efforts in buildings. The Airbitat Smart Cooler is 80 percent more energy efficient than conventional air conditioning units and does not use refrigerants or compressors. Eco-friendly with negligible waste heat generation, each unit can run for 8 hours at a combined energy and water cost of as low as SGD$2.50 a day.

Several units have already been successfully implemented at various commercial and industrial urban spaces such as Resorts World Singapore or at the Singapore Mandai Zoo. The popular STAR village in Darwin, Australia is also testing out the use of Airbitat for its alfresco dining experiences.

The Airbitat Smart Cooler was created and designed in Singapore by Innosparks, an ST Engineering Open Lab. It is effective all-day and adapts intelligently to varying conditions throughout the day to deliver efficient cooling. Unlike conventional one-mode coolers, its intelligent system detects the ambient environment and engages the right cooling mode to deliver the right level of thermal comfort. Leveraging on an innovative cold-water generation system, it chills air through an ultra-efficient heat exchange and high performance evaporative medium, leading to cool air streams emerging.

Following its success, the Airbitat Smart Cooler’s technologies have also been adapted for overhead cooling and purification technologies. These are now being tested in the world's first sustainably cooled bus stop located outside Plaza Singapura, Singapore.

Innosparks is Singapore’s first engineering-based incubator and the Open Innovation Lab of ST Engineering, a global technology, defence and engineering group specialising in the aerospace, electronics, land systems and marine sectors. Innosparks is a worldwide innovation exchange for entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs focusing on addressing urban needs and challenges in mobility, healthcare, energy & environment, and security & emergency management.