The Scotsman
Mon 1 Jan 2007
Scots inventor cracks centuries-old puzzle
PAT HURST

IT IS a mechanical problem that has troubled scientists since Archimedes and the ancient Greeks, but now a Scottish electrician has come up with the answer - and it could help consumers save thousands of pounds in energy bills.

Ian Gilmartin, 60, has invented a mini water wheel capable of supplying enough electricity to power a house - for free.

The contraption is designed to be used in small rivers or streams - ideal for potentially thousands of homes across Britain.

It is the first off-the-shelf water-wheel system that can generate a good supply of electricity from as little as an eight-inch water fall.

Mr Gilmartin, an electrician and inventor who was born near Cupar, Fife, was not prompted to think up his new device by high energy bills - he does not own a television and has never lived in a house with electricity.

But he has a stream at the back of his house, and with the help of his friend and PhD engineering student Bob Cattley, 58, he hopes to get the invention into the shops by the end of this year.

Mr Gilmartin began experimenting three years ago with yoghurt pots and wheelie bins in the stream, the Beck Mickle, before test-running a prototype.

He and Mr Cattley, who live in Kendal in Cumbria, took the results to the Lake District National Park, and secured a £15,000 grant from the organisation's sustainability fund.

The prototype has been working successfully at St Catherine's, a National Trust site near Windermere, opening up previously untapped energy.

The water wheel produces one to two kilowatts of power and generates at least 24kw hours of sustainable green energy in a day - just under the average household's daily consumption of about 28kw hours.

It will cost some £2,000 to fully install - and pay for itself inside two years.

The Beck Mickle "low head" micro hydro generator could potentially provide electricity to more than 50,000 British homes and could be used industrially.

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