Which appliances are pushing up your energy bills?

With the Chancellor confirming that the energy price cap will rise in April, it seems we won’t be taking our eye off our electricity usage any time soon. But while energy saving tips have become a staple of breakfast television shows and small talk, how many of them really add up in practice?

The Spectator’s data team has crunched the numbers to see what typical household devices actually cost to run. And the answers are quite surprising.

Perhaps you’ve heard the warnings over the past weeks of so-called ‘vampire devices’ – those pesky contraptions which carry on costing you money when you’re not actually using them. You may even be among the almost half Britons who say they’re already making an effort to switch off their gadgets at the plug for that reason.

But if you’re not, don’t worry. The average cost of leaving a device plugged in on standby is actually pretty minimal – thanks largely to a handy EU diktat which sets strict limits on how much energy things such as microwaves can use when they’re not on. Assuming your devices are compliant, their standby costs are likely run to around 13p a month – so less than £2 a year (although internet-connected gadgets can cost more).

In fact, most of those devices aren’t that ‘vampiric’ even when they are in use. Taking current electricity prices, the typical LCD television costs around 4p an hour to run. Games consoles also cost around 4p while desktop computers will set you back 5p an hour. (Although keep in mind that unit prices are set to rise in April – with current estimates suggesting those numbers will double.)

When it comes to kitchen appliances, the picture is slightly different. If you boil the kettle for five minutes, you currently pay around 8.5p for the privilege. Running your oven costs around 71p an hour, and heating a microwave meal (from chilled rather than frozen) will cost you around 4p a go. Provided it isn’t too full, your fridge-freezer costs about 10p an hour.

There are things you can do in the kitchen to keep those costs as low as possible, too. Recent research from the energy firm Utilita found that just putting the right lid on a pan can save you around £51 per year. Although their counterfactual assumes you’d be cooking without lids every day – the kind of Withnail-style decadence most of us can only aspire to.

The consumer organisation Which? also has practical tips for reducing energy usage in the kitchen – most of which fall squarely into the category of common sense. Defrosting food in advance stops your oven from having to waste energy doing nature’s work, for example, while smaller devices such as the increasingly popular air fryer can be a cheaper way of cooking small items.

So which devices are the prime offenders when it comes to driving up your energy bills? An honourable mention has to go to the dehumidifier, which costs around 17p for every hour it’s on (more bad news, then, for the 7 per cent of renters living in damp accommodation). But top spot goes to the tumble-dryer, which costs a whopping 85p an hour to run.

Most everyday devices are much less costly. Running an iron for ten minutes costs around 9p – making it slightly less efficient than a hairdryer, which costs 11p for the same time. The average washing machine clocks in at 71p per hour. However, switching your wash from 40 degrees to 30 degrees can apparently save you £12 per year. 

Don’t worry too much about your broadband router, which is probably costing you around 1p per hour. So you don’t need to shell out for one of those timer plugs that switches the router off overnight: it will almost certainly cost you more than you’ll save. Internet service providers even warn that frequently switching your device on and off can flag up your line as faulty, causing you problems in future.

If you’ve got a smart meter, keep an eye out for trial schemes – such as the one run by Octopus – that will give you money off your bills for running devices such as dishwashers overnight (when energy is cheaper due to low demand). Even better, some smart devices have the ability to identify exactly when electricity is cheapest – and then time their functions around that.

In the meantime, though, it seems the best advice is just to take a common-sense approach. While all of us are likely to notice our bills increase, unless you’re constantly running a tumble-dryer – or have a particularly elaborate morning hairdryer routine – your domestic usage probably won’t drive you to ruin this winter. And with the current economic climate, that might be the closest to good news we’re going to get.