Electric Kettles: An Assessment of Energy-Saving Potentials for Policy Making in the European Union

Abstract

Electric kettles are found in almost every household in the European Union. Within the preparatory study to establish the Ecodesign Working Plan 2015–2017, the electricity consumption of this product group in Europe was estimated at 20 to 33 TWh in 2012, with an energy-saving potential of more than 20%. This led to an Ecodesign preparatory study on kettles in 2020 to analyse the potential role of environmental policy-making for electric kettles in Europe in more detail. Based on elements from this study, this paper reviews worldwide policies covering this product group, methods to assess its energy efficiency and analyses of the potential of technical improvements to enhance energy efficiency. A method is suggested for measuring the power of kettles, and corresponding power-temperature measurements of selected kettles are presented. Overall, the findings indicate that technical optimization alone has a limited potential to improve the energy efficiency of kettles and to highlight the absence of a standard for measuring the energy consumption of electric kettles. However, user-related aspects of operating kettles offer a substantial saving potential. Heating too much water or at higher than required temperatures increase the energy consumption and related energy costs of private households. This could provide leverage for policy makers to improve the market and to reduce the environmental impact of this product group beyond mere technical optimization of energy efficiency, including aspects related to circular economy and energy sufficiency.