Air Fryer Electricity Saving vs Electric Oven
I recently bought an air fryer. I am amazed at how good they are. It's one of those devices you don't know you need until you have one. We rarely use our oven nowadays.
As far as I can tell, air fryers are more like mini ovens. They don't really fry things, they oven bake them really quickly. Like a fast pizza oven. They are almost magical.
It got me thinking about the energy-saving vs using my regular fan oven. My air fryer is rate 1.5Kw/h vs my oven which I assume is about 2.5Kw/h. In simple terms, the air fryer uses 1.5 units of electricity an hour whereas the oven uses 2.5 units.
At the time of writing the UK government energy cap is roughly the cost of a unit of electricity. This is 28.34p a unit. So to run an air fryer for an hour it would cost, 1.5 * 28.34p = 42.51p, whereas the oven would cost 70.85p.
That's a fairly obvious result as the air fryer is smaller and has a lower wattage. The amount of savings will depend on many factors. If you cook large meals only, an oven might actually be more cost-effective but if you cook small portions, then an air fryer will pay for itself in less than a year.
My son loves potato wedges. That's all he eats. He eats them 3 times a day. This is atypical though, so let's just assume he eats them once a day.
An air fryer takes 3 minutes to pre-heat, vs 8 minutes or so for the oven. The air fryer will cook the wedges in 13 minutes vs about 22 minutes for the oven. Overall then it's 16 minutes vs 30 minutes. Half the time almost, half the expense… but it's actually better than that as the air fryer is only 1.5Kw/h vs 2.5Kw/h.
Doing the maths it works out at 11p vs 35p a time. The 24p a day saving over 365 days is about £88 which is roughly what my air fryer costs. As I use my air fryer 3 times a day, I actually save 3 times that much.
Your actual saving will depend on what you cook and in what quantity. If you cook a lot in the oven at the same time, then it might just be worth switching it on. For example, if you were doing a pizza and chips, you could put them all in the oven at the same time and it might cost less than doing them in the air fryer.
For a single person or small family though, an air fryer will be more cost-effective than a fan oven. It will pay for itself in less than one year just on the electricity costs and when you factor in the time saving, buying an air fryer is a no brainer.
My air fryer is this one.
COSORI Air Fryer 4.7L with Recipes, XL Air Fryers Oven for Home Use, 7 Presets, Preheat & Keep Warm, LED Onetouch Tempered Glass Screen, Nonstick Basket, Low Fat Cooking,1500W,CAF-L501-KUK. You can get off amazon
Conclusion
An air fryer is highly likely to save you money on your electricity bill. How much depends on your cooking patterns. I have shown that cooking a portion of wedges a day will save you approximately £88 a year in electricity.
If you are struggling to buy a gift for someone an air fryer is perfect. As I said at the start, it's something you need but you don't know you need it. If you know someone struggling with bills, buying one would save them a lot of money over the year.
Get one for free
If you are really struggling for money and could do with an air fryer, I can tell how to do online offers to get the money needed to buy one. You can easily make a one off £100 by signing up to offers on Beer Money UK. Get in touch if you want the specific offers to get £100 with the least effort.
Ben has a BEng (Hons) in Computer Science and 20 years of experience in online marketing, specialising in SEO, lead generation and affiliate marketing. After spending over a decade as an igaming affiliate, he has decided to concentrate on GA4 training and SEO Audits.
