06 Aug induction cooktop vs electric power consumption

The last article mentioned "How Much Does An Induction Hob Consume?

" and many friends asked, Can i really save electricity with an induction hob? This issue we'll analyze how induction hobs save electricity? Induction hobs are primarily known for their very good energy balance . In the same breath, these hotplates are said to have a very good environmental balance. Because if your hob saves electricity, it can of course be classified as particularly environmentally friendly. Although this is one of the clear advantages of an induction hob over other hobs, you should know that the acquisition costs for an induction hob are currently still very high. Cooking with ceramic or gas is therefore significantly cheaper, at least from the point of view of acquisition costs. In the long run, higher energy costs are incurred with such hobs . However, it still takes a long time before the additional financial expense is met associated with the purchase of an induction hob. We would therefore like to reveal to you in detail how high the savings potential really is.

Why you can save electricity with an induction hob

The way an induction hob works is responsible for the fact that you can save electricity at all. This is due to the fact that the functional principle when cooking with Ceran and induction, for example, is fundamentally different. When cooking with Ceran, the hotplate first has to be heated by the electrical energy. This heat is then passed on to the pot, which only warms up in the second step. So it not only takes longer for your pot to warm up on a conventional hotplate, but also the loss of energy is also larger than an induction hob. After all, energy has to be used to heat the plate. When the energy is transferred from the plate to the pot, part of the energy is also released into the room air as heat. You also pay for this "wasted" energy, so that a higher energy consumption can be expected compared to an induction hob. In the case of an induction hob, the hob itself does not heat up. Rather, the heat required for cooking is generated directly in the cookware itself. This also explains why induction water boils faster than ceramic, for example , and why not as much energy is lost in this process. But how does it work exactly? First of all, we have to state at this point that you can only use cookware with a ferromagnetic base on your induction hob anyway . This can mean additional costs for you, as most cookware is unfortunately not suitable for induction and has to be replaced accordingly. Below the hob there is a special coil that uses the high-frequency current to generate an alternating magnetic field. The bottom of the pot now ensures that the alternating field is bundled. Small cyclones form on the outside of the pot, which also provide warmth due to the magnetic field. The electrical power can thus be converted particularly well as heat. This is a very energy-efficient process that makes the corresponding savings in electricity costs possible in the first place. However, you should keep in mind that generating heat using electricity generally requires a relatively high amount of energy, which is one of the reasons why many environmentally conscious consumers are increasingly cooking with gas.

How Much Money Can You Really Save?

So even though it has been proven that you can actually cook more energy-efficiently with induction than with ceramic or gas, you are probably not yet clear how much these savings actually turn out to be. The Stiftung Warentest has checked this in the interests of all consumers and did not get a particularly good result. If you assume that you have to pay 0.25 dollar for a kilowatt hour, then the cost savings of an induction hob amount to just 6 dollar per year. More information However, you should keep in mind that this value only applies to a model household. So if you cook a lot or have an extended family , the savings per year can quickly turn out to be significantly higher . In addition, the cost factor is usually not the only decision-making basis that decides whether you buy an induction hob or not. In order to better classify the cost savings that are possible with an induction hob, we would like to give you a concrete example at this point. This is about how much it costs to heat 1.5 liters of water with a wide variety of hotplates.

As you can see, an induction hob is not always cheaper than the kettle when boiling 1.5 liters of water and in some cases not even cheaper than heating the water using a ceramic hob. In conclusion, it can again be stated that the cost savings that are possible with an induction hob in annual consumption are rather negligible. So while you can indeed save electricity with an induction hob, in practice the savings are not as great as you might have hoped.