How accurate are the electricity monitors?

brownie4583 · 30 January 2012 at 2:35PM

I have recently been sent a free electricity monitor by British Gas.
I have set it up and have been checking it for the past couple of weeks.
I set it up at 20p per kw and it gives a read out of how much electricity is being used hourly.When i get up at 4.30am for work,it is usually reading around 2-3p per hour,but sometimes it reads 11p per hour when only the fridge freezer and 1 light is on??
I have noticed that anything that heats up,eg oven,microwave,kettle etc takes most energy,these knock it up to 40-50p per hour.
I am just wondering how accurate these monitors are?

HappyMJ · 30 January 2012 at 2:40PM

They are 100% inaccurate but they are handy for looking at trends. The Xbox uses 2p an hour so if it reads 2p more that it should then yell at the kids "turn the Xbox off." The central heating has a pump that will use a few pence while running so you might have seen that too. And...don't watch in the £.p mode switch it to the kWh mode. Then you can see how accurate it is. If you turn on a 2kW heater it should increase by 2kW. If it increases by any other amount you can see how inaccurate they are.