Designer Peter Brewin promises water and energy savings

PRESS RELEASE
28 June 2005

Brittish Standards Institute award winner showered with success. A revolutionary high-performance re-circulating shower which uses 70 per cent less water and 40 per cent less energy than conventional showers, has today won the BSI (British Standards Institution) 2005 Environmental Design Award.

The system, designed by Peter Brewin, a student at the Royal College of Art, brings significant environmental benefits and consumer cost savings by re-circulating water and cleaning it to a high standard before re-use.

By reducing water usage by 70 per cent and energy use by 40 per cent, the shower would allow a family of four taking one shower per day to save over £170 per year on its utility bills. The same family would reduce its overall water usage by almost 43,000 litres per year while Greater London's eight million population could reduce water usage by around 85 billion litres per year - the equivalent of 85,000 Olympic sized swimming pools - by using the shower.

The shower works on similar principles to a Dyson vacuum cleaner, using filters and hydro cyclones to clean the re-circulated water and re-heat it to the desired temperature before re-use. In addition the shower has a number of benefits including easy installation to the cold water supply, pressure equivalent to a power shower, chlorine filter, digital temperature control and water meter giving water usage per shower. The shower also features a pause button. This means that the water flow can be paused - only delivering water when it is exactly the right temperature.

BSI, which works with business to encourage the uptake of sustainable business practice, has run the Environmental Design Awards with the RCA for 11 years. Commenting on this year's winner, Awards judge and BSI Sustainability Manager Nick Marshall said: "Peter has used innovative design to provide a solution to an immediate environmental problem combined with significant cost savings for consumers. This highly commercial proposition is particularly relevant in the year when water shortages are predicted for London and many parts of the UK."

On being announced the winner of the BSI Environmental Design Award, Peter Brewin of the RCA's Industrial Design Engineering department explained what drove him to create the concept of the re-circulating shower: "My aim was to create something that benefits both consumers and the environment, because designing something which is good for the environment but which has no commercial value did not make sense, because it will never get to market. By saving on energy and water usage the shower will enable people to reduce their impact on the environment and save money at the same time."

BSI first became involved with the Royal College of Art in 1994. The Awards scheme was conceived as a vehicle to promote the synergy between design and standards, aiming to encourage better links between the worlds of design and industry and explore the mutual benefits in terms of innovations in products and processes.

The 2005 BSI Award runners-up are Matthew Appleton of the RCA's Communication Art & Design department for his "Afterlife" Project, which investigates the by-products of the modern manufacturing process, and Tomek Rygalik of Design Products for his Sustainable Light Solution Project, which distils all the components of a light fixture into a sustainable one-part design.

As part of the BSI Awards presentation, international architect Will Alsop will be delivering the BSI Environmental Design Award Inaugural Lecture on sustainable design during the Tuesday 28 June 2005 Innovation Night at the Royal College of Art. Innovation Night is one of the principal events in the RCA calendar, enabling some 300 senior people from the business, research and higher education communities to meet in the context of the MA Degree Show.

Energy saving calculations:

Peter Brewin, the shower's inventor, has made careful calculations of how energy efficient his shower really is and uses the figure of 40 per cent.

He explains: "My calculations show a 57 per cent energy saving, however this is only the heating energy saved and is a thermodynamic maximum. I prefer to talk about a 40 per cent saving because my shower also requires a pump (400W) and a few other electrical components such as the mixer and control electronics, as well as allowing for some heat loss from the system during the re-circulation. Thus I'm sure that the figure of 40 per cent is a realistic minimum saving, and in reality it is likely to be a bit more."

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