Electric Stovetop Cooking: Conservation ideas

Good heavy materials like cast iron will get hot and stay hot better than most other things. But keep in mind with cooking there are times you want the bottom to be super hot but the sides to be simmering. Or times where you need something to cook for a long time at a lower power which uses more energy (because it is not a 100% efficient conversion) than shorter at a higher time.

But I am flabbergasted that you only use 150KWh per month... I use that in 3 days... Between March 1st and April 1st I used 1801KWh of electricity.

 

It keeps its heat better, so you can keep it at a higher temperature with a lower power input. So instead of using high on a cheap aluminum skillet to maintain boiling water, you can maybe turn the cast iron to 85% power and keep it boiling.

Then on the opposite scale, you can buy triple wall aluminum insulated baking pans. They do not keep their heat at all which is exactly why you want them for baking pastries. You get nice even baking instead of crispy burnt bottoms and soggy tops. Cooking is not where you sacrifice energy efficiency! You need the right tool for the job unless you don't care what you eat.

My windows PCs draw almost nothing. Maybe 50W to 80W total on average. Under high load they can draw 800W continuous though. My real pigs are my server backbone equipment. My router and firewalls are both 2 dual CPU 6-core each (12 core total) 3.4GHz beasts with 128GB of RAM in my router and 512GB of RAM in my firewall that run at 20% to 80% utilization constantly keeping up with my network. My PS3 draws more power than my windows PC's at close to 170W.

 

Covering a skillet while stir frying changes the taste. You not only trap in heat, you trap in moisture. Lots of times the exact thing you are trying to do is condense the flavour by evapourating excess water given off by the veggies and sauces.

You invest the same energy to heat up the pan, and then less to keep it hot. For things like soups, stews, sauces or long cook items the savings might eventually add up. For things where you are searing or skillet frying, the principle is the same but generally you are only sauteing for like 5 minutes or 10 minutes. So it might not save anything unless you then use that iron skillet to reduce another sauce or something where you can keep the heat and do something with it instead of just keeping it there for nothing.

But one of the main benefits of cast iron or some sort of heavy material is that because it keeps its heat, it also evenly keeps it heat. Every part of it (even the handles!) heats up nicely and evenly. You can see this difference best in what I call the pancake test. Get a cheap $3 walmart skillet and make a pancake without moving it. Just put it on the center of the burner, pour in the batter, wait, flip, wait, and remove. You will see the batter dark in lots of weird areas. The pan is hot is these little spots. Your stovetop may not be even, the pan might not be even, the pan's metal may have deformities in it, etc. Now do it with a cast iron skillet. You should get the same shade across the entire surface. Even heat distribution, even from a crappy heat source like an electric range.

So with your skillet meals, if you find that things in the centre burn while things on the outside remain luke warm, using a cast iron will help that but might not save you any money.

 

Low Hanging Fruit????!!!! At 150kWh a month, you have dang near picked all the fruit. I think your only real choice is to give up food.

I have worked my loads over pretty good but my best is about 600 kWh month (e.g. when the air conditioning if totally off). Unfortunately, pool pumps, water heater, dryer, and big house loads can only be reduced so much before more problems are created than solved. You have to be mighty close to that point, especially if the kitchen is the only major load center left. (Humor intended -- Be sure the kitchen partner is onboard with new cooking directions prior to handing them a cast iron skillet.)

 

An immersion heater is essentially 100% efficient, much more efficient than a microwave.
REI Immersion Heater 120/240 at REI.com

Another alternative would be a pot with heating element built in and a thermos to hold left over hot water.
Something like this
Amazon.com: Presto 02703 Electric Tea Kettle: Kitchen & Dining
for the pot. I've also seen an insulated one but don't remember where.

 

12 Steps to Raw Foods: How to End Your Dependency on Cooked Food: Victoria Boutenko, Gabriel Cousens: 9781556436512: Amazon.com: Books

 

maybe try half of your meals raw and the other half on the Prius.

Manifold Destiny: The One! The Only! Guide to Cooking on Your Car Engine!: Chris Maynard, Bill Scheller: 9781416596233: Amazon.com: Books

 

I tried some engine cooking a long time ago. My V8 Dodge pickup did a good job on manifold recipes. My 4 cylinder Datsun 510 wasn't good for much more than warming precooked food and was marginal at that. I expect that a Prius with it's more efficient engine (less waste heat) would be even worse than the Datsun

 

It might be 2% to 3% of an average household, but I would think your use is so below average, that it is a much larger percentage.

The average is supposedly around 1000KWh per month. So 3% of that would be 30KWh. Since you use 150KWh a month, it is more like 20% of your average usage.

 

I'm looking for recommendations for home energy monitors to track the 240V loads -- hot water heater, resistance heaters, heat pump, dryer, stove.

The hot water was moved, re-wired, and re-plumbed to the garage just last week, in preparation for a future heat pump water heater. Before the electrical inspection, I'm thinking about adding a regular electric meter to the circuit, next to its new disconnect switch. Refurbished old fashioned mechanical units (just like the one still on my house, though the utility will start upgrading next year) appear to available for $15-20, not counting the mounting box and shipping.

But this isn't practical for the other loads without ready-made tap points along the wires. Devices such as TED (The Energy Detective) use a current transformer around a wire (e.g. at the breaker in the service panel), transmitting data back every second (or minute or hour or ...) for real time monitoring. The basic unit starts with one channel (i.e. whole house), but appears capable of 4 channels. Reviews appear mixed. Other similar products exist, but I haven't dug through the choices yet.

Has anyone here used any of these systems?

 

Have you considered a Heat Pump Water Heater? I'm in the market for one, but am sorting through the different cold weather performance issues of the available products. Many quit pumping heat (reverting to regular electric mode) at about 45F ambient (my typical garage temperature for four months), a few work below freezing, but one common unit becomes less efficient than regular electric at about 65F ambient. And they make noise, some quite tolerable, some much less so.

But they should work much better in your climate, doing double duty by reducing both the hot water load and the AC load, if you can manage the noise level inside the house.

 

That should be for an element on High. Do you really use a High setting that much? Most of my household's cooking is at lower power for shorter times. The pressure cooker and stir fry start at full power, but can you turn them down a ways once the steam starts flowing and the frypan is hot?