Induction vs gas - Experiment

waqasahmed

So to more truly work out more scientifically if induction cookers are more expensive to run than gas, I think I've got a plan

1. Buy one of these

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/285108017820

2. Buy 1  "cooking thermometer"

3. Use one stop watch 

4. Use one energy monitoring plug, for the induction cooker. I could just look at the smart meter but that will include everything else that's running too 

5. Buy 1 x induction pan. If not induction ready, then get a converter 

Then:

Make sure the gas heating isn't on (ie: during summer and not when someone's in a shower) 

Check what the gas meter reads, and write it down. 

Put say 500ml of water (or realistically however much it takes to fill the pan) 

Pop the thermometer in, and time it until it gets to 100C. Then, write down the time it took as well as the gas meter reading 

Rinse the pan using cold water, and repeat, twice 

Work out the average of the three 

Then, do the exact same but with the induction cooker, and instead of looking at a smart meter, it'd be a proper energy meter plug instead 

Does anyone have any criticism of the "method" I'm trying to conduct this? Or perhaps I'm not doing things in the plan as best I could? 

The end goal is to truly say, well how much energy does it use for x and how much is that in real money 

The one thing I can't really control is the quality of the induction cooker, or technically I can but I'm not gonna spend £200 on an experiment 

DullGreyGuy

Your proposal for 5 will give different results to if you dont need a "converter"... if you are wanting to know "your" results and dont want to replace your pans then this is fine but you will get a lot worse results with a converter. 

One of the issues you arent considering is the size of the pan and gas burner... gas cookers are inefficient because heat escapes around the side of the pan rather than going into the pan and so whilst 40% is an often quoted efficiency if you put a little pan on a big burner you lose much more energy. 

What is your methodology going to be? Put the pan on the highest power burner and set it to max? 

waqasahmed

DullGreyGuy said:

Your proposal for 5 will give different results to if you dont need a "converter"... if you are wanting to know "your" results and dont want to replace your pans then this is fine but you will get a lot worse results with a converter. 

One of the issues you arent considering is the size of the pan and gas burner... gas cookers are inefficient because heat escapes around the side of the pan rather than going into the pan and so whilst 40% is an often quoted efficiency if you put a little pan on a big burner you lose much more energy. 

What is your methodology going to be? Put the pan on the highest power burner and set it to max? 

Sorry, I was gonna try and match the size of the pan to the closest size "ring"

I'll look into without a converter then

Also tbf, the methodology is:
Put the pan on the closest size "ring" and set that to max

Exiled_Tyke

DullGreyGuy said:

Your proposal for 5 will give different results to if you dont need a "converter"... if you are wanting to know "your" results and dont want to replace your pans then this is fine but you will get a lot worse results with a converter. 

One of the issues you arent considering is the size of the pan and gas burner... gas cookers are inefficient because heat escapes around the side of the pan rather than going into the pan and so whilst 40% is an often quoted efficiency if you put a little pan on a big burner you lose much more energy. 

What is your methodology going to be? Put the pan on the highest power burner and set it to max? 

The method should try to replicate how someone would typically use their gas hob.  

waqasahmed

Exiled_Tyke said:

DullGreyGuy said:

Your proposal for 5 will give different results to if you dont need a "converter"... if you are wanting to know "your" results and dont want to replace your pans then this is fine but you will get a lot worse results with a converter. 

One of the issues you arent considering is the size of the pan and gas burner... gas cookers are inefficient because heat escapes around the side of the pan rather than going into the pan and so whilst 40% is an often quoted efficiency if you put a little pan on a big burner you lose much more energy. 

What is your methodology going to be? Put the pan on the highest power burner and set it to max? 

The method should try to replicate how someone would typically use their gas hob.  

If it's boiling water, I'd definitely set it to max tbf (on the closest "ring" size)

Also that was my rationale for water (ie: you can just whack it on max, and go with that)

Exiled_Tyke

Not incredibly accurate but I've calculated/estimated consumption from my induction hob to boil a litre of water from 8oC as .24kWh.   This was using a medium sized pan with a lid drawing 900w.   I repeated the exercise with a smaller pan that only drew 500W and the consumption went up a little - presumably because of the increased time wasting more heat escaping the pan.  The ambient temperature was 12oC.   Hope that helps 

waqasahmed

Exiled_Tyke said:

Not incredibly accurate but I've calculated/estimated consumption from my induction hob to boil a litre of water from 8oC as .24kWh.   This was using a medium sized pan with a lid drawing 900w.   I repeated the exercise with a smaller pan that only drew 500W and the consumption went up a little - presumably because of the increased time wasting more heat escaping the pan.  The ambient temperature was 12oC.   Hope that helps 

That does indeed help 

Tbh, the reason why I wanted to post my idea for this experiment here, is to get people to say "Actually you've missed this" which has sort of happened above

Given that I've had some critique, I can do the above experiment with a little minor tweak as suggested above too (ie: no converter)

I guess I'll hopefully report back in a few months 

Officer_Dibble

I'm not sure I'd bother experimenting. I'd just conclude that as gas is a third of the price of electricity then even if induction is theoretically more efficient, the gas will still be cheaper. I say theoretically as we've got a single gas burner next to an induction hob (we bought the house with that installed, I'm not one for such extravegance!) the induction hob shows no sign of efficiency at all - the gas burner is superior in every way.

DullGreyGuy

Officer_Dibble said:
the induction hob shows no sign of efficiency at all - the gas burner is superior in every way.

We replaced our gas cooker before the recent energy price changes and was doing it for reasons other than cost savings but did do a quick side by side test and the induction would boil a 2L pan of water much quicker than both the kettle and the large gas burner. The downside for us was that some middle of the range pans which were supposed to be induction compatible had to be replaced as in reality they werent... ironically some much cheaper pans worked perfectly with it (as well as the not so cheap ones we bought after). 

Why you not liking induction? We find its quicker, much easier to clean, lower fire risk (Mrs likes deep frying on the hob) and as all 4 burners are the same output you can move pans around and keep the same temp (with 5 rings in 4 different sizes keeping constant heat on the gas was difficult other than the back two rings)

Exiled_Tyke

There are threads elsewhere around these boards where others have done similar things.   When I did a gas versus electric kettle calculation a few years ago  I posted the results  (but can't find it just now). At that time I found the gas method was around 10% cheaper. I used a stove top kettle and a hob which wouldn't lick the sides.   So I think it's safe to conclude that a gas hob is cheaper to run than an induction.  But I'd be surprised if there's much in it and compared to the other households costs (running the central heating for example) it won't be great in the scheme of things.   But as DullGreyGuy says the other benefits of induction vastly make up for any additional cost for us.  I won't repeat them as I posted these on the other thread. 

Officer_Dibble

It might be that our pans aren't up to it, and I think the largest of the induction rings is broken (it doesn't seem to get above medium heat - level 5, even if you turn it up to 9). We've got 4 rings of different sizes on ours, but the smallest 2 are just puny. They're slow, boil over too easily and incredibly annoyingly all the rings turn off as soon as a bit of water lands on the surface. I don't understand the perceived difficulty of cleaning round the gas burner, it's every bit as easy as scraping the induction surface.

Oh, and have you ever seen a professional kitchen with induction hobs? Chefs use gas. There's a reason...