Oven energy

JamesFromSomewhere

I've checked my ovens manual, it says it uses 0.74kwh/cycle.

What does the cycle mean? I understand it's telling me it uses 0.74 kw per hour, so is this the important bit? Seems a bit low. On the radio, they said the oven uses 4p per minute. My kWh currently is 35.42p so my oven is using 0.43p per minute? Pretty sure I'm wrong 😂

Any help appreciated thank you.

MWT

The information given is intended to be used to compare different ovens, not to give you anything much of use in regards to your actual use in practice.

It is not telling you that it uses 0.74kW per hour.

Similarly trying to use energy per min is unhelpful as an oven will spend much of its time consuming very little energy once it is up to temperature.

Xbigman

Ovens don't run continuously. Once up to temperature they cut in and out. This means that having the oven on for 40 mins does not use twice the power of 20 mins. What is a cycle? Its a supposed average cook of something and is basically meaningless. The only way to work out what a cooker costs is to read your meter, turn off everything (including fridge and freezer) then cook something, then read the meter again. Do this for 30 mins and for 1 hour cooks and you will have a good idea of actual power usage.


Darren

[Deleted User]

Also, because this confusion comes up often - you can’t use 0.74kW in an hour.

kW is like a speed, kWh is like a distance.  You can use 0.74kW for an hour, or you can use 0.74kWh.

For appliances, they quote meaningless numbers to help you compare between different models and brands, like the mpg on cars - it doesn’t tell you much about what you will actually use.

Astria

Xbigman said:

Ovens don't run continuously. Once up to temperature they cut in and out. This means that having the oven on for 40 mins does not use twice the power of 20 mins. What is a cycle? Its a supposed average cook of something and is basically meaningless. The only way to work out what a cooker costs is to read your meter, turn off everything (including fridge and freezer) then cook something, then read the meter again. Do this for 30 mins and for 1 hour cooks and you will have a good idea of actual power usage.


Darren

Or rather can't you read the meter, do nothing for an hour, read the meter again to find your "background usage level". Then you can put the oven on for an hour, read the level again and simply remove the background usage level. This way is far less stressful when you have kids who want to play xbox or a partner that wants to watch the footie

Xbigman

Or rather can't you read the meter, do nothing for an hour, read the meter again to find your "background usage level". Then you can put the oven on for an hour, read the level again and simply remove the background usage level. This way is far less stressful when you have kids who want to play xbox or a partner that wants to watch the footie

No. Your background usage varies with Fridges and Freezers cutting in and out. Take them out of the equation and you get a sensible baseline figure. 


Darren

JamesFromSomewhere

Ok I see. That all makes sense. Thank you. I'll switch everything off tonight as I'm genuinely interested in my usage.

avoidtheupsidedownbottles

Astria said:

Xbigman said:

Ovens don't run continuously. Once up to temperature they cut in and out. This means that having the oven on for 40 mins does not use twice the power of 20 mins. What is a cycle? Its a supposed average cook of something and is basically meaningless. The only way to work out what a cooker costs is to read your meter, turn off everything (including fridge and freezer) then cook something, then read the meter again. Do this for 30 mins and for 1 hour cooks and you will have a good idea of actual power usage.


Darren

Or rather can't you read the meter, do nothing for an hour, read the meter again to find your "background usage level". Then you can put the oven on for an hour, read the level again and simply remove the background usage level. This way is far less stressful when you have kids who want to play xbox or a partner that wants to watch the footie

Given the time and inclination, you could use a stopwatch app to time the periods when the cooker element is heating.  Most ovens we've had make a clear 'click' when switching on/off and the fan noise changes tone.  Then multiply the total on time by the power ratiing in the manual.  I guess fancier appliances might now use PID type controllers which would not be as simple to measure