Using an oven typically costs £1.02 per hour, according to home services provider Hometree.
Martin Lewis, a financial expert, has cautioned that switching from an oven to an air fryer or a microwave may not save much money on energy costs.
Mr. In light of the ongoing cost-of-living crisis, Dot Lewis advised consumers to be cautious about assuming that microwaves and air fryers are more cost-effective than ovens.
The money-saving expert’s podcast suggests that, in some circumstances, cooking food in the oven can be more cost-effective than cooking it in a microwave or air fryer.
Mr. Lewis argued that while it makes sense to microwave one jacket potato for a brief period of time in order to save money on energy, doing so is probably more expensive than using an oven to prepare a full roast for a large number of people.
“The issue with the heating equipment equation is that an oven will be about 2000W,” he said”.
Unlike an oven, which warms up to temperature before topping off, a microwave evenly distributes heat throughout the cooking process.
However, it will be significantly less expensive to microwave a jacket potato for 10 minutes than to bake a single one for 1.5 hours.
Although cooking a full roast dinner would probably be less expensive if you were making a large number of them because a microwave only heats the specific item. It would be better to use it for longer.
The financial expert provided a straightforward equation to use in figuring out how much it will cost to run an appliance.
The typical formula is to determine an item’s wattage, figure out how many kilowatts or how much of a kilowatt it uses, and then multiply that number by 34p for each hour of use.
In the event that you had a 1000W microwave and used it for 10 minutes, one KWH for a sixth of an hour would cost roughly 6p. Therefore, it is 6 p.m. m. when the microwave has been operating for that length of time.
As a result, it is a very helpful equation.
A typical oven uses around 3kW, which works out to about £1.02 per hour, according to home services provider Hometree.
The company’s analysis shows that the kitchen appliances that use the least energy are microwaves and slow cookers, which typically cost about 30p per hour to operate compared to air fryers, which have an average wattage of 1kW.
A 700w microwave’s operating cost is 23.08p per hour, according to Hometree, whereas a slow cooker’s operating cost is 5p per hour.