CNBC Business | Next in: Energy efficiency

Next in: Energy efficiency

Measure it

The most ubiquitous gadget of the future may not be the phone after all.  As energy prices rise and the recession bites, smart meters will be popping up all over the place.  

Domestic smart meters, which currently cost between €50 and €150, display the amount of energy a house is using at any given moment, or the annualised total if everything ran at the same level for a year. The idea is that people will cut back on wastage as soon as they become aware of  how much energy they use. For example, according to UK smart meter maker Owl, you’d swiftly get shot of your Apple Mac Pro PC when you realised it would cost over €300 a year in electricity, compared to just €40  for a Dell Dimension. 

One of a new generation of meters, the Wattson has been designed by three graduates of London’s Royal College of Art. The device, which looks rather like a digital clock, connects wirelessly to a sensor on your fuse box so it can chastise you aesthetically in the kitchen or living room. As well as the numerical display, the Wattson glows red when your house is guzzling electricity, through to blue when you reach a low-energy nirvana. It then plugs into your computer for a detailed analysis of your daily, weekly and monthly energy usage.  

Manufacturers say that simply having this information on display makes you save between 5% and 20% on your energy bills each year. Large companies such as Munich-based Siemens now offer a raft of smart metering solutions to small businesses.  

Meanwhile, metering may even follow you out of the house. Fiat has launched a device that lets drivers know how much fuel and money they could have saved had they changed gears differently, accelerated less harshly or reduced their speed. The ‘dashboard dipstick’ connects to the engine’s Electronic Control Unit and records all driver inputs. After a journey, the driver can transfer the data to any computer. 

Launched at the recent Paris motor show by its architect, Turin-based Luis Cilimingras, the technology is completely free and currently works on the new Fiat 500 and Grande Punto. Although widespread in the world of fleet logistics and trucking, this is the first time such an application has found its way into the private car.