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Nottingham Post

National

Karen Antcliff

Cost of running an air fryer, oven and microwave and how you can save £604

Utilita Iceland (Organization)

When if comes to keeping a tight rein on household budgets, it is easy to regulate the cost of a supermarket shop - you can literally see what you are spending as you go along. However, when it comes to cooking that food and using the energy to do so, how much are we really forking out?

Helpfully, new research explains exactly how much energy, and therefore cash, an appliance gobbles up. It also reveals how by switching your method of cooking, Brits could save up to £604 per year on their energy bills.

Energy supplier Utilita teamed up with supermarket chain Iceland to compile the research and the figures are enlightening. The data, which is based on the average amount of time each appliance is used for per day, gives a detailed cost breakdown of each of the six main types of cooking appliance typically found in UK homes, reported the Mirror. So, is it time to turn off the oven and switch on an alternative? Here's what the research revealed.

Unfortunately, the most energy intensive appliance is the electric cooker. It can cost up to £316.54 a year to run – while at the other end of the scale, the microwave costs 8p a day, totalling £30.02 annually. It would appear that using a gas cooker is cheaper at the moment, which would costs 33p a day, or £120.83 a year, while the part-electric, part-gas dual cooker, would set users back 72p daily, or £264.03 annually.

If you have an air fryer sitting on the worktop or in a cupboard, then this could be a more economical appliance to use if appropriate. Using the air fryer would set you back 14p a day – totalling running costs of £52.74 over a 12-month period. The figures, based on the latest data from Cornwall Insight on Monday, August 22, – come as Utilita and Iceland are set to rollout the “Shop Smart, Cook Savvy” campaign in-stores and online in September, to help identify the most economical ways of cooking.

And it is not just switching appliances that could save money, as the data found batch-cooking food could save up to £158 a year, while using the right sized pan, with a lid, could cut costs by £72. The research is based on the energy consumption of 83 appliances across 24 sources, including academic research, legislation, and data collected from popular shopping websites.

Research of 2,000 households found they spend approximately 43 minutes cooking each day, with 42% using the oven by default for most of their cooking needs. But just over half admitted they don’t know which of their cooking appliances cost more to run.

Archie Lasseter, Utilita’s sustainability lead, said: "The rising cost of energy is going to create seismic shifts in consumer behaviour associated with energy consumption, through a new awareness of the cost to consume. The impact will be far greater than any of the Government’s green initiatives ever could have achieved." Continuing: "Although cooking is said to account for 4% of the average energy bill, the savings speak for themselves. It’s vital that consumers are given the facts they need in order to use less energy in the interest of the pocket and the planet."