Green Fuzzy Panda 2. How much energy does it use?

 

Using electricity efficiently in cooking.

The kilowatt (1000 watts) is a measure of power or energy used by electrical appliances and is usually printed on the apparatus. A small hot plate would have a rating of about 1,5kw while a large one would be closer to 2kw. We pay for electricity by the kilowatt.hour which is how much energy an appliance of 1kw will use in an hour. We can’t change the watts of our appliances, but we can change the amount of time we use them for. The following ratings have been supplied by City Power

Appliance		Rating (kw)
Stove	Small hot plate on high	1,5
	Small hot plate on low	0,35
	Large hot plate on high	2,0
	Large hot plate on low	0,5
	Oven (approximately 200° C)	2,0
Electric frying pan		1,5
Microwave		0,7 -0,9
Sandwich toaster		0,7
TV grill		1,8

It might appear from the table above that it is easy to save electricity by using hot plates on low rather than high. This would only be true if the food cooked in the same amount of time. For example if you use a hot plate of 2kw on high for 30 minutes or one on low at 0,5kw for 2 hours, you use the same amount of electricity – 1kwh. To be efficient you need to be able to optimise time as well as power.