The effect of materials selection and design features on energy consumption of electric kettles

Sustainable energy technologies and development have attracted the attention of researchers in recent years towards NetZero. Energy poverty and the increase in energy prices in domestic context have attracted the attention to measures that could help save energy and reduce energy bills. Boiling water is a common part of daily life, and the energy consumed can be influenced by the heating process, heat loss and consumer behaviour. This paper focuses on the materials and design features of electric kettles and the energy consumption when boiling water. As in many countries, boiling water is done via electric kettles for convenience. For this study and to examine the effect of kettle selection on energy consumption, three types of kettles are used to test the effect of materials on energy consumption: glass, steel and plastic. Furthermore, the effect of some design features is investigated such as insulation. The study reveals that energy consumption of plastic kettles is lower than the energy consumed by steel and glass kettles. Additionally, other design features, such as insulation, could lead to a lower energy consumption for boiling water. Although the reduction in energy consumed per household per day is relatively small, the accumulated energy savings are still worth paying attention to since kettles are everyday household appliances. In the UK, for example, using energy saving kettles could save about 80 GWh of electricity per annum (assuming only 1 litre of water is boiled every day in each household). This study contributes to making the process of boiling water more sustainable from a consumer perspective. Furthermore, the experimental work offers evidence that with the help of the newly designed and suggested features which include enhanced thermal insulation, boiling water could consume less energy and heated water would maintain relatively higher temperatures for longer periods.