Electric Stovetop Cooking: Conservation ideas

Extensively. To make a long story short, I profiled each circuit breaker feed. The long running profiling makes identifying both the loads and the personnel behavior clear. Finding the mystery loads was the real payoff. Such as:
1) A TV signal amplifier in the attic. Not very efficient. Always on.....but not connected to any TV. Now gone.
2) A heater for an old piano. This one took effort because it never occurred to me that a piano would be plugged in. That was not an insignificant load. Now unplugged.
3) A huge draw on a heat pump turned off?! Circuit breaker turned off when cool season is in effect.

There are other more minor loads, but these made me aware of what I needed to look for in the replacement purchases.

 

Would you mind mentioning what system you used? TED, roll-your-own, or something else?

 

TED. Sorry I was not clear on that.

 

If you are going to go through all the effort to heat food using an outside stone, then you probably can do some solar cooking while waiting for the stone to heat up enough. In this case I have no clue if I am being serious or funny.

 

The pizza-box-oven you make in school works pretty well.

Or you can go all Ed Begley (kinda sounds like you are!) and build one of these:

 

No. What I use to have was a Energy Recovery Unit. When the heat pump runs, it uses the high temp output of the compressor to heat the hot water heater. Worked great for a few years. i would turn off the circuit breaker to hot water heater in April and then wait for yell from shower that "the water heater is broke again" in October. Problem was the unit was not engineered for long life. The minerals would condense on the heat transfer coils and the unit had no provisions for cleaning or any repairs of any sort. I am waiting for an industrial version to appear on the market before replacing.

 

I'll ditto XS650. Don't heat water in a microwave. Microwaves are efficient relative to a traditional oven (around 12% efficient), but not relative to anything else. If you want to heat water with electricity, use an immersion heater/hot shot/electric kettle. I use a hot shot.

That said, on the broader issue of energy use, for the typical household, this so does-not-matter that you won't see it treated seriously. Stovetop cooking is your biggest electrical use? Congratulations. But that's so out of the mainstream, good luck on getting sound advice.

 

A couple years ago we bought new pots & pans. Stamped in the bottom of the cookware, was that statement that they were compatable with inductive cook tops (first time I'd heard of them). Supposedly, they're more efficient than natural gas . . . . but the down side is that they're more efficient after you blow a HUGE wad of cash on the cook top. They're very pricey.

 

So that was a desuperheater attached to your home heat pump? So your really did have heat pump water heating, but not as a stand alone unit.

It is unfortunate that your unit didn't last long. Mineralization should not be a problem here, and the units I'm considering have 10 year warranties. But it is clear that product designs are not yet mature, and we have to choose carefully to fit our situations. One of the most commonly available units around here, sold by one of the big box HarDware chains, flunked the recent Northern Climate Specification tests. At my normal garage temperature range, it is actually less efficient than common electric water heats. It should be sold only in the southern half of the country.

 

It depends -

If you live in california and the electricity comes from an old gas thermal plant, which is likely, then that induction cooking is less efficient than natural gas burners. If you have solar, and can sell it back to the grid, it is often better than using it on induction also, as your solar electricity will offset more natural gas that is not being burned in power plants, if the solar would go to waste then then induction is more efficient. But really the point is that cooking is probably a very small part of your fuel load, and if you like gas there is no reason to switch to inductive. If you like inductive that is fine also, its easier to clean up, but I don't have big problems cleaning my natural gas stove top. My gf is a chef, and wastes lots of heat on the stove, the food is good, the bills are low, I don't really care about a little waste. My biggest energy waster cooking wise, is smoking over charcoal and wood, but it is small, and we have planted lots of trees just not at home. Cooking for 8 doesn't take much more power, than for 2, unless you count the energy that went into the beverages

Induction is about 12% more efficient than standard electricity though, so there are savings if you are using electricity instead of natural gas already. That 12% doesn't reduce your microwave, blender, oven, etc, so YMMV and will likely only save a few percent on cooking electricity.

 

Publicly The first time I heard of inductive cooktops was when I bought one. I have since read that they are priced high in the US, etc. This is not really the case in China, I paid 300 RMB which is >USD$50.

it must be 'boutique pricing' because there is not a lot of there, there, inside the cooktop. The main thing you must know if considering, is that they don't work at all with aluminum, ceramic or glass pots. They web sites I have seen are straightforward about that.

The one I got does the low-level heating by duty cycling, which is less than ideal. Maybe the better ones control the inductive current?

Based on experience, I would not doubt the 12% efficiency increase. I suppose it could be higher with pots of the best design.

Am I right about the pricing 'over there'?

 

Maybe you need a solar oven.

 

Maybe you have just a 1 or 2 burner portable thingie? The U.S. carries those from $150-$1,000. But most home owners would look to buy the whole shebang ... and when built into the top of an electric oven:



This MID-priced bad boy (at Sears) will run you $2,500 .... plus tax.
That extra cost to go inductive (although they've come down about $500 average since checking a couple years ago) would buy me a whole lot of kilowatts.

 

Of course nat gas stove is option, you mentioned stuck with elec but you do have nat gas for water.
Outdoor grilled veggies are good.

 

^^^one would think 150 watts is hot to the touch, or at least warm

 

150W dissipated in a large metal box designed to get hot, might not be warm at all in any user accessible place.

 

At my use of burners that would take me around 10 years to use that much electricity. I would still have to pay for it though, and it would cost more than the natural gas I use now. If you are all electric and save 12% electricity, how many years is payback.