The Owl Wireless Electricity Monitor
How does it work?
It has a small sensor which clips around the Live Outgoing Supply Cable to your house - now this is the cable that goes from your electricity meter. It doesn't interfere with your electricity supply but the company recommend you get an electrician to do this for you - as with anything electrical, if you don't know what you are doing, then DON'T do it. Having said that it's a small operation.
The plastic clip has small magnets in it which can measure the small magnetic field that is generated from power cables.
This connects to a small battery powered transmitter - about the size of a cigarette packet which wirelessly sends the data to your display unit.
So what information does the display give you?
It converts the data on the current being used and calculates the amount of power being used, the cost and even the amount of greenhouse gas emissions.
It assumes you are connected to a fossil fuel electricity generating station and gives you a Green House Gas emission figure for that.
What I like about it is that it gives you the breakdown of not just how many kilowatt hours of electricity you are using - which may not mean too much to you, it wouldn't to me - but when you programme it with your electricity tariff, it converts it into Euro and Cents - which is great - and that will give you a land when you turn on the Immersion heater!
It gives you the overall consumptions of electricity in your house, but you can determine how expensive an individual appliance is to run - for example - when you turn on the tumble drier!
So how does it save you money?
Well that all depends on you. What these monitors will do is give you the information and details of how much electricity you are using, what it is costing you and even how much CO2 you are helping to produce.
It's then up to you to decide how many electrical appliances you REALLY need on - but it will tell you how much money it is costing you for instance to have all of those lights on, throughout the house, including empty rooms - and
You could even test for yourself the difference an old CFL bulb will cost you versus the newer long life bulbs.
The other useful aspect is that depending on the model - you can get send the data directly to your PC and you can graphically view and plot your electricity usage so you have a better idea of what your electricity bill will cost you.
The manufacturers claim it could save 27% on your electricity bills, but that all depends on how diligent you are.
Is it easy to install?
You should use an electrician to attach the sensor to the main supply cable.
After that the programming can be a bit detailed - but you really only have to do that once. You input the cost tariff you are on (you can even tell it if you are on multiple tariffs). I think you can even tell it to sound an alarm when you are beginning your peak tariff period!
What does it cost and where can you get one?
The Owl Wireless Electricity Monitor cost €49 and you can get more information from www.theowlireland.com