Air Contradiction

He’s quick to highlight that this is the same system as FREECOOL – lowering the temperature of hot air from outside by passing it over heat pipes – just on a much larger scale. But there are clear challenges with delivering this kind of cooling to 40,000-seater stadiums in a country where even winter temperatures can reach 29°C. A gradual temperature transition from the hot outdoors to the cold stadium is vital to avoid people getting ill, while 90 full minutes of running, kicking and sweating means that players need to be kept at a lower temperature to the crowd. Even the wind blowing onto the pitch has to be taken into account so it doesn’t interfere with the ball during gameplay. All of this is controlled by giant plastic nozzles that are strategically placed throughout the stadium, complete with moveable parts to push the air towards a specific area.

The same technology is also delivering the first zero-energy cooled school in Abu Dhabi, which has inspired teachers and pupils at Shaikh Khalifa bin Zayed Bangladesh Islamia School to form a science club that teaches school children all about modernising traditional cooling systems in the Middle East. It’s an exciting prospect that a generation of budding young engineers, much like Ben himself, might one day emerge from a school club.

Ben’s latest work is exploring whether the passive process behind his air conditioning could provide a cheaper, greener alternative to conventional heating.

The theory – currently being tested with prototypes in Sheffield’s Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre – is that heat recovery technology can be retrofitted onto existing ventilation structures called ‘wind towers’, which currently fulfill basic air circulation functions. You might’ve seen wind towers before (they look like vents and sit inconspicuously on top of buildings) and it was Ben himself who developed them during his PhD over a decade ago, after leaving school at 16.

“I took the PhD because it was an opportunity to make a building energy-efficient but using different technologies,” he reflects. “Since then wind towers have become a massive market, but the actual technology behind them hasn’t changed.”

Ben firmly believes this will have just as much impact as his work on the next World Cup: “We’ve got something that’s very easy, very simple and can reduce energy. I think it’ll be really good for the UK and could have a huge impact.”

He predicts that his wind towers could be ready to launch as soon as 2020. That means your favourite high-street stores, your school, university or office, could soon be conserving up to 25% of their energy at a time.

Drastically lower energy consumption for both the sweltering hot and bitterly cold seasons without compromising on our own comfort could one day be a reality. But the prospect that energises Ben is potential for passive to appeal to pressing environmental concerns and consumers budgets.

No matter how sustainable we’re trying to be, that cost efficiency, Ben concludes, is where people’s interests really lie. “Nobody cares about energy. There’s nobody, myself included, who’s going to be convinced to turn the air-con or heating off in their house – we only care about how much it costs,” he says. “The higher the tariff goes, the more interested and more sustainable we’ll become. As long as you can show people that by investing in this system and learning more about how they use energy they’ll get that money back in a short period of time and be better off, you’re onto a winner.”