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The Herald Magazine 07 July 2007 |
Tanya Ewing, 39
Invention: domestic energy-use monitor
One morning a couple of years ago, Tanya Ewing received a huge gas bill that angered her so much she rushed out the front door, still in her pyjamas, to look at the gas meter. “I just wanted to know where the figure had come from,” she says. “However, it didn’t help because the meter measures things in cubic feet and the bill was in kilowatts, and the two were not compatible.
“It just made me think that a lot of people get confused by how their bills are calculated and because utility meters are outside or hidden in cupboards you cant always see what’s going on. From that minture, I was on a mission to find a device that would measure the use of gas, electricity and water.”
The mission took her onto the internet, where she spent days searching fruitlessly for a device that would help her measure energy consumption. So she decided to invent one.
This was no small feat for a woman who, she says, had been “just a housewife for years”, had no relevant training and, to make matters worse, was battling the debilitating effects of Lyme disease, which is caused by a tick bite. Still based in Perth, where she now has a four-month son, Coll, Ewing says after the initial idea took hold in 2005, she did a lot of research, found an industrial designer and had a prototype of the Ewgeco ready last year.
Each time an appliance or taps are turned on, the wall-mounted device shows how much electricity, water and gas is being consumed using a traffic-light system which goes from green to amber and to red as consumption increases. The Ewgeco will also be able to check the energy use of individual appliances, even a TV left on standby.
Ewing, who has won several awards for her invention, says most householders are unaware of the accurate cost of running appliances and that by saving just a penny an hour, this adds up to about £88 a year. She has global patents pending on the meter and it is due o come on the market early next year.
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