The BBC March 2008

Award for energy device inventor

Tanya Ewing has spent almost two years working on her product

A Perth mother has become an "Inventor of the Year" for developing a device that monitors energy use.

Tanya Ewing has spent almost two years working on her product, which can gauge how much gas, electricity or water a building is going through.

It uses a traffic light system - green for low energy usage, then amber and red when consumption is high.

Ms Ewing is about to send the first devices to businesses and social housing groups.

Her product is called Ewgeco, which stands for electricity, water, gas and then ecological.

She believes it will encourage people to use less energy, reducing carbon emissions by an estimated 20%.

Ms Ewing told BBC Scotland that she first came up with the idea when she got a large gas bill that she found hard to understand.

She said: "I went outside to look at my meter, straight away I though 'Why is it outside?' You can't gauge with something that's outside.

"I remember I was in my pyjamas, it was freezing cold and it was in February and I was determined, I'm going to find out how much it does cost me for my heating to run every hour if the radiators were three, or the radiators where two-and-a-half.

I'm just a woman who's good at multi-tasking Tanya Ewing

"I just found it was impossible."

Ms Ewing then asked more than 1,000 people about the size, shape and feel they would like her product to be and where they would put it.

Her hard work was rewarded when she won the title of 'Inventor of the Year' at the British Female Inventor and Innovator of the Year Awards.

While Ms Ewing has been developing her product she has also moved house and had a baby but she rejects the "superwoman" label.

"Some people call me that," she said.

"But I'm just a woman who's good at multi-tasking."

The Courier March 2008

More plaudits for Perth inventor

AN INNOVATIVE energy monitoring device designed by a Perth woman gained further recognition last night when Tanya Ewing took home the top prize as Inventor Of The Year at the tenth annual British Female Inventor and Innovator of the Year Awards in Cardiff.


Her Ewgeco invention that uses a ‘traffic-light’ display to show real-time use of electricity, water and gas also won Tanya (39) the Best Business Idea award.


A total of 40 women presented their entries to the judging panel at Cardiff’s City Hall and Paul Ambridge, president of the Institute of Patentees and Inventors, chaired the panel of 14 judges.


“This was the closest final we’ve ever had and it was very hard to select the overall winner from so many impressive entries,” he said.


Tanya has applied for an international patent for her invention. She has no formal engineering training, and as a dyslexic she was very keen to develop an easy-to-read display for her energy monitoring device.


It was her frustration at trying to extract useful information from her utility bills, coupled with her concern for improving energy efficiency, that gave her the idea of designing a single device to display how much energy and water a building is using at any moment.


“Tanya’s determination in getting her idea turned into a successful product is amazing,” said Sue Ratcliffe, one of the judges.


“She invested £50,000, using her house as security, to get to prototype stage and pay professional advisers, including a patent attorney.”

The Press and Journal March 2008

Students to learn from housewife inventor
Perth entrepreneur aims to pass on experience at Aberdeen lecture

By Ian Forsyth

Published: 06/03/2008

A HOUSEWIFE turned inventor will deliver a lecture to entrepreneurial management students at the Robert Gordon University’s Aberdeen Business School today.


Tanya Ewing, 39, from Perth, came up with the idea of energy-monitoring device Ewgeco.


She had no previous product-development experience, yet she now has a global patent pending and the first orders are scheduled for installation in May.


Ms Ewing will explain to students what it takes to conceive a new product idea, protect its intellectual-property rights, choose a manufacturer and get it to market.


Ewgeco is the result of nearly two years of research and development after she discovered there were no products that would enable her to know her real-time consumption of electricity, water and gas without getting on her hands and knees to read the meter under the stairs.


As a sufferer of the debilitating Lyme disease, Ms Ewing not only found the meter difficult to reach, but the information was not easily interpreted.


Ewgeco uses a simple traffic-light system, whereby the display changes from green to amber to red depending on the usage of various utilities.


Ms Ewing has identified a market opportunity at a time when businesses and consumers are trying to cut energy bills and carbon dioxide emissions. She said: “The demand is there and not just from Scotland.


“I get contacted from people all over the world wanting to buy Ewgeco. It is this demand that is driving me, as helping people to change their behaviour will make a difference to the planet for our children and their children. I am very proud that Ewgeco has been invented and designed in Scotland.


“It is being made in Scotland and the first units off the production line will be installed in my home town of Perth. I have been on an amazing learning curve during the last two years, and I aim to tell the RGU students that with determination, total belief in the concept and a strong support network, the sky is the limit.”


Marzena Starnawska, of the Charles P. Skene Centre for Entrepreneurship at the RGU business school, organised the lecture.

She said: “Tanya Ewing serves as an excellent example of someone who, even if they have no engineering background, can make their innovative invention viable.


“We all see all these potential market opportunities all around us, but we do not have enough passion and persistence to grasp them. For me, it also proves that there is very clear and continuous support for entrepreneurship in Scotland. Entrepreneurship can indeed be taught in a variety of ways.”