The Microwave:

First off, how much energy does the microwave consume? Well depending on the model it varies as much as 600-1200 watts. Now that is the amount of energy is consumes when it is running. When it’s off however, it still consumes from 3-15 watts per hour due to it’s display unit (the clock). The average is around 5 watts per hour though. For a microwave running it takes around 1000 watts on average. So in a typical day a microwave will use 120 watts, thus costing you .01065$ or 1 cent. So each day you will lose a cent because your microwave is running with a total cost of 3.90$/Yr.

Now say you also use your microwave during your lunch every day for 2 minutes, excluding the weekends. So, if it’s running at 1000 watts an hour for 2 minutes that’ll be 33.3 watts each day. Which is only 1/4 of the amount of energy it uses in it’s display each day. So in total your microwave only costs you .771$ a year to make food. And in total the microwave uses only 4.67$/Yr.

So the microwave doesn’t really steal much money away from your pockets. Now lets see how the oven fairs.

The Oven:

Well the amount of energy the oven uses also fluctuates a lot. From 1000 to 7000 watts. Now of course from each end of the spectrum it will greatly change our costs so lets instead say it runs at 2000 Watts (this is what I’ve found to be the general power consumption). Since we are comparing the oven to the microwave we will still use the same figure of 2 minutes, but this time we’ll use it daily. This amounts to 2.17$/Yr. But wait…. most ovens have a clock as well …. The clock takes about 3-4 watts. We’ll use 4 watts. So this adds an extra 3.11$ raising the total too 5.28$/Yr.

In Conclusion:

So it seems and makes sense that using a microwave is a lot cheaper then using an oven. You may argue that if you are using an older oven without a clock you wont have that extra price attached to having a oven and it would be more efficient then using a microwave, however old ovens typically use up more energy. Now if you were to cook every day or use the microwave for longer periods to time, would the microwave still be cheaper? Yes it would. It makes sense; microwaves use a lot less energy then ovens.

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