Martin Lewis's energy calculations

Sterlingtimes

I think how Martin Lewis and the Centre for Sustainable Energy calculate energy usage is misleading. Notwithstanding his use of watts to equate to watt-hours, a washing machine using a peak power of 2,100 watts is unlikely to use 2,100 watt hours per cycle. 

A cotton cycle for a 10 kg load set at 40 degrees and 1600 RPM spin is unlikely to use more than 1 kWh of energy per cycle. Therefore two cycles a week would use 104 kWh in a year. Even at 37p per kWh, the annual running cost would be £38.

MultiFuelBurner

Sterlingtimes said:

I think how Martin Lewis and the Centre for Sustainable Energy calculate energy usage is misleading. Notwithstanding his use of watts to equate to watt-hours, a washing machine using a peak power of 2,100 watts is unlikely to use 2,100 watt hours per cycle. 

A cotton cycle for a 10 kg load set at 40 degrees and 1600 RPM spin is unlikely to use more than 1 kWh of energy per cycle. Therefore two cycles a week would use 104 kWh in a year. Even at 37p per kWh, the annual running cost would be £38.

I might suggest many don't run the latest energy efficient models.

Ours too doesn't use more than 1kwh for a 40oC wash but it's a fairly new Bosch.

Bendo

This is the cycles summary for my machine. I'd struggle to get those power consumptions. Maybe if I did a few washes...

Gerry1

Yup, it's a well-meaning but quite muddled site.  They often confuse energy with power, similarly kWh with kW, with clangers like these:-

★ 'It will use 12kWh of electricity (e.g. half a kilowatt every hour).'

★ 'sometimes a higher-wattage appliance will actually use less power overall than a lower-wattage one'

★ Even on the same page they have calculations based on a mixture of old and new kWh rates.

★ They think a fan heater is a 'radiant' type.

★ They confuse plugs and sockets.

★ Also a bit daft to classify an iron as high consumption.  Technically true, but far less of a problem than using plug-in electric heaters every day for long periods.

MeteredOut

"I think how Martin Lewis and the Centre for Sustainable Energy calculate energy usage is misleading."

I doubt Martin Lewis has even read that piece, never mind been involved in its authoring. It was clearly written by someone who didn't really understand what they were writing, however.

Sterlingtimes

MeteredOut said:

"I think how Martin Lewis and the Centre for Sustainable Energy calculate energy usage is misleading."

I doubt Martin Lewis has even read that piece, never mind been involved in its authoring. It was clearly written by someone who didn't really understand what they were writing, however.

A source is here:

Martin Lewis reveals simple way to calculate running cost of any household appliance | The Sun

Bendo

The Scum. Well known for fine journalism and accurate direct quotes.

MeteredOut

The only quote from Martin Lewis is

"So 100W (a tenth of a kW) appliance on for two hours is 3.4p an hour x 2 = 6.8p," he said.

Which is factually correct. 

The full tweet is here:

https://twitter.com/MartinSLewis/status/1579362831329538048

and if you check the responses, people have raised the same point you did regarding items not drawing a constant load, to which he agreed.

The rest of that is just the The Sun, well, being The Sun and putting words onto a page as click-bait. In this case, using Martin Lewis's face as hook to get clicks.

"Using Martin's calculation, The Sun has crunched the numbers on how much costs to run a number of common household appliances."

It really is just the usual sub-standard journalism we should have come to expect from that outlet.

Sterlingtimes

MeteredOut said:

The only quote from Martin Lewis is

"So 100W (a tenth of a kW) appliance on for two hours is 3.4p an hour x 2 = 6.8p," he said.

Which is factually correct. 

Thank you for the Tweet and for taking the time to post. You are correct.

Sterlingtimes

Bendo said:

This is the cycles summary for my machine. I'd struggle to get those power consumptions. Maybe if I did a few washes...

Thank you, Bendo. That is interesting. A category C machine like mine would sit close to 1Kwh for a Cotton 2 wash. Your older machine appears to use about x1.4 energy.

Bendo

Sterlingtimes said:

Bendo said:

This is the cycles summary for my machine. I'd struggle to get those power consumptions. Maybe if I did a few washes...

Thank you, Bendo. That is interesting. A category C machine like mine would sit close to 1Kwh for a Cotton 2 wash. Your older machine appears to use about x1.4 energy.

Oddly it's brand new (otherwise the program cycle list would have long since made its way to the recycling bin).

It's a B rated 9kg Hotpoint. Wouldn't have been my first choice to be fair but selected purely on the basis of it's height due to the kitchen fitters incompetence in not taking into account the height of the floor tiles....