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Last week we came over all geeky with a plug-in power meter. Using it, we found out that brewing a cuppa costs about half a penny, but found ourselves wondering how much a week’s worth of cuppas cost.
Not all that much, as it turns out. We left the meter connected to our kettle, which used 2.53 kilowatt-hours (kWh) during a week spent boiling water for two people. At around 9p per kWh, that’s a fair bit less than the milk and chocolate biscuits we got through during the experiment - well, science is hungry work.
Of course, tea and TV seem to go hand-in-hand, and before long we were asking whether watching a soap uses more power than putting the kettle on in the advert breaks. The power meter now sits proudly on a 20-inch telly that uses around 60W when it’s switched on. Perhaps not surprisingly given that it’s a few years old, it also uses a couple of Watts when it’s left on standby.
Now, being fairly environmentally-minded we’re a little uncomfortable leaving the TV on standby for a week, but it’s all in the name of research. We’ll let you know whether it catches up with the kettle, but if you’ve got a (polite) suggestion for where we can stick our power meter next, please add a comment or send us an email.
Image by flickr user joezollo
why not try plugging it into beauty aids ie Hair dryer straightners ect and see how much our beauty routine costs
Thanks Barbara - good idea.
Have you taken into account that most people fill a kettle half way just to boil one cup of tea or maybe two? That would certainly add a vast amount of cost to a typical households kettle use. I work in a small segregated office which share a kitchen and almost everyone (except me of course) will fill a kettle halfway to make one cup of tea or coffee. Such a waste!
Hi Alan - very good point. We did experiment with different amounts of water in the original post but the link to it in the article above wasn’t working. I’ve fixed it now!
you should ask the people who run the windfarms how much electricity they use compared to what they make. I understand that some days they use more then they earn, can’t they switch them off on really bad days and save electricity??!
This is just the information I was looking for - very useful thank you. Please let me know if you ever run the test on an electric cooker - though hard to plug in power meter I guess!
True, the single-socket power meter is impossible to use on the oven, but with our new eco-eye in hand, we’re kitted out. Initial results are, frankly, a matter of heated debate. But once we’ve compared every hob ring, grill setting and oven compartment, we’ll let you know.