How has the increase in the cost of energy impacted how often you cook warm meals?

comeandgo

1 No
2. No idea but I use a remoska, microwave, air fryer and batch cook so I think the cost would be modest.  Staying in north Scotland I dread to think how we would be able to cook food in winter with a solar cooker.

Alnat1

The problem with a solar cooker is that the sunnier (hotter?) the day is, the less likely you are to want a cooked meal.

You want a casserole, stew and dumplings etc. on those cold winter days when it hardly gets light and there would be very little solar energy to power up a cooker.

oldagetraveller1

1. No

2. Cost analysis, no idea. Microwave, gas hob and air fryer usually. Also occasional use of a halogen oven. Can't remember when the electric fan oven (free standing with a gas hob combined) was used.

I suspect that relying on solar powered cooking will result in lots of salads, cold food and takeaways being consumed.

hugheskevi

Some points which might assist:

(1) Don't assume that people will be using less energy for cooking. When incomes are declining in real terms, there will be a number of substitution effects taking place in their expenditure. An obvious area for reduction would be the amount spent on eating out. That would lead to an increase in the use of energy for cooking at home, but nonetheless reduce overall expenditure.

(2) You need to separate out marginal and average costs. Marginal cost in this case would be the additional cost from cooking one meal. Average cost would include an allowance for the cost of purchasing the appliances used, wear and tear on utensils, etc. Everyone will already have the infrastructure for cooking, so their decision making will be influenced only by the marginal cost of energy (all other marginal costs, eg, wear and tear on utensils will be trivial). Personally my wife and I spent £8.44 (incl VAT, excl standing charge as the standing charge is a sunk cost - I have to pay it regardless of whether I use gas to cook or not) on gas in the 31 days of July. That includes hot water for showing, cleaning, etc, as well as cooking. That is 27 pence per day, and only a small proportion of that will have been for cooking, the majority would have been spent heating water for showing and cleaning.

It would be expected that sort of saving is unlikely to drive any significant behavioural effects, even amongst low income households. Therefore, the elasticity of energy use for cooking should be very low as price changes, ie, people will not change cooking habits even if energy cost changes significantly. However, households are not always economically rational, and cost pressures may induce budgeting even on things that yield almost no cost savings, so just because the cost saving is close to irrelevant there may be behavioural change nonetheless.

born_again

pseudodox said:

Really cannot see a solar cooker being effective in our climate.  I would be more inclined to get a slow cooker or even use a hay box.

I have had a thought on that, that might just work.. Cards very close to chest on that one.

pseudodox

Today I suddenly fancied some cake. So I lit the oven, got out the flour and eggs and got stuck in.  Ingredients cost about 95p & I used 10p worth of gas.  This is a big cake that will cut into 10 slices.  So around 10p per slice.

Could have driven down to Tesco (3m round trip = 0.3l fuel = 55p (I have to use E5).  Then a cake that gives 6 slices would have been  £3.50. Cake total £4.05 or 68p/slice.  No brainer to turn the oven on even if just for one cake.

The point made above pointing out it is cheaper to cook than get takeaways or eat out is a good one.  A friend of mine seems to spend her life in coffee shops - £3 for a coffee, £3.50 for a modest cake.  Several times a week.  Always saying how low her energy bills are!

ka7e

1. I'm cooking at lunchtime where possible. either for immediate consumption or using the slow cooker for meals to be eaten later. This is primarily because I have solar panels and I can cook meals for free at midday. If I use the oven I tend to cook multiple items at the same time - like fish and chips and a fruit crumble.

2. Difficult to ascertain costs as I'm also exporting electricity at the same time

FlorayG

1. I still cook as often as I feel like it, but I haven't owned and oven for ten years, I use a halogen oven or a slow cooker so doesn't cost much to run
2. No idea what percentage of my usage is for cooking. Probably not much
I don't think you will be able to design anything that hasn't already been invented, but great idea to try

bob2302

victor2 said:

I suspect current solar cookers are designed for countries where there is no, or a sporadic, electricity supply on a grid - and the sun shines considerably more than in the UK! Cooking by gas is commonplace in less affluent (for want of a term) parts of the world, and is perhaps what you should compare against, with mains gas costing about 5.1p/kWh at present.

I think it mainly competes with cooking over fires fuelled by dried animal dung - to reduce respiratory disease.

kimwp

1. No difference 
2. Difficult to separate it out from other energy usage, but I do most of my cooking in the evening, plus it being the UK (overcast a lot, midges, rain, sun only being in part of the garden at most points of the day) means that a solar cooker wouldn't be viable choice for me.

Have you considered a way to maximise extraction of heat on a gas hob? They only use something like 40% of the energy. Maybe some kind of collar to reduce the amount of heat going up the sides. Would need to consider airflow for optimal and safe burn and consider smells as well (apparently the smells from induction cookers are greater because there is no rising hot air around the pan to bound the smelly gases 

There are also super insulated boxes (I'll try to find the name - think they are hayboxes), that you can use to carry on cooking. A friend used to bring beans to the boil in the morning, then put her pot on the sofa and surround it with cushions to keep the heat in. By the time she got home from work, the residual heat would have cooked the beans and they just needed a quick reheat. Would be interesting to look at that energy compared to the energy for a slow cooker. What about a haybox where you can heat the contents and then turn the heat off and put an insulated lid on?