Green technology takes center stage at AHR Expo in Chicago

Over 60,000 professionals gathered at Chicago' s McCormick Convention Center on Tuesday for the International Air Conditioning Heating Refrigerating (AHR) Exposition, where they highlighted the industry' s increasingly green technology. Experts from more than 35 countries came to share their vastly different goods.VBut for the latest technological innovations there seemed to be one thing in common: environmentally-friendly products for the future. From solar panels to hybrid water heaters, companies all seemed to have sustainability on their mind. Solaira, a Canadian company that manufactures outdoor infrared heating systems, helps keep people warm outside, whether they are customers waiting in line outside a busy restaurant or workers unloading shipping cargo at cold pier. Although the outdoor heating lamps are run off a short wave, high intensity heating system, Solaira' s General Manager John Tartaglia told Xinhua that the lamps' high tech sensors are also able to detect human activity and can therefore help conserve power. This sensor system allows the Solaira lamps to switch off and save energy, which gives them a 92 percent efficiency rating and therefore avoids the needless waste of energy. "Our efficiencies allow us to take care of very specific heating areas and not heat the whole area, because if you have workers in a certain zone you do not need to heat the whole building but only where they' re working," Tartaglia told Xinhua about the reasoning behind the system. In addition to more efficient uses of standard heating methods, however, the AHR Expo also featured the debut of new products based entirely on green technology. David Miller, market development engineer at JSP, said that JSP was "absolutely" interested in environmentally-sustainable technology, and that the polypropylene sheets his company manufacturers were also 100 percent recyclable. Miller said that JSP had not previously explored the AHR industry but that due to increased interest in sustainable heating and cooling, the company had decided to try using its polypropylene sheets to structure a new kind of lightweight solar panel. "(The green) industry is very new, so we are adapting this material from the automotive industry, trying to get it to some different fields," Miller told Xinhua in an interview about the recent expansion in sustainable technology. "The main advantages of our product is that we are hybrid - doing both thermal energy and photovoltaic tag energy in the same panel," Miller continued, explaining how solar panels were now used as a source of thermal heating as well as electricity. While the JSP-based solar panel utilizes not only energy from the sun but also water that is pumped to the top and then dropped down behind an anodized aluminum heat shield, China's Shandong Province-based Linuo Company' s solar collector is made of heat-absorbing copper pipes which channel thermal air distribution. According to Linuo, the different style of its solar collector featuring 12 different copper tubes gives it a better ability to conduct heat in a short amount of time, therefore giving the solar collector greater thermal-dissipation and environmental efficiency Linuo was just one of the many Chinese companies that attended this year' s AHR Exposition, which also included presentations from Guangdong-based Midea and TCL. General Manager of Midea' s Residential Air Conditioning Unit Matthew Giordano told Xinhua that their most advanced innovation for Midea this year was a hybrid air conditioning unit, also with the environment in mind. The ductless, many-split air conditioner could also use solar energy to deliver the standard 230 volt cooling service, and Giordano added that Midea was increasingly looking to such sustainable technology for its other products like humidifiers. TCL was likewise looking to utilize the latest technologies in the future, and Vincent Zhou, sales director of TCL' s North American Sales Department, said that TCL was looking to the competitive American market for not only residential but also increasing commercial sales. But even as TCL looks beyond China, Zhou said that he personally enjoyed seeing the increasing presence of Chinese companies at the AHR Expo. "This is our sixth year participating in this event, and every year I feel that for China' s own authentic products the new scale is getting better and better," Zhou told Xinhua about his feelings for this year' s Expo. The AHR Expo was not alone in its spotlight of green technology, as recently the North American International Auto Show also featured a new wave of electric and hybrid cars. As concerns about air pollution and limited fossil fuels increase, companies in many fields are looking to more sustainable forms of energy and the products that consume it. This record-breaking year for the AHR Expo features a total of more than 2,000 exhibiting companies involved in the heating and cooling industry, and runs three days.