Our “how can I reduce this?” questions are often about how to reduce physical waste but it’s important to stop wasting power too – and I’ll like to hear your tips & helpful hints on this: how can I reduce electricity wastage in the kitchen?

Everyone knows not to boil too much water in the kettle – just what’s needed – and most people know to keep their fridge coils free from dust to make them more efficient. We’ve also touched on this topic in the past when talking about using ovens efficiently when baking and about reducing energy usage in the house in general – and we’ve had some great advice. For example:

• Bellen, Rob and chicgeek all recommended using spare oven space to bake potatoes or other root veg for future use; Bellen also suggested roast chicken parts for lunches & chicgeek stews.
• damnthebroccoli suggested planning baking to coincide with other run-of-the-mill oven usage so it’s only on once.
• Bobbie urged us to put lids on a pot, use crock pots/slow cookers and in winter, open the oven door after baking so the warm air escapes into the house rather than being “extracted” outside.
• kittykat advocated using “ice boxes” in the winter – allowing you to turn off your fridge for weeks at a time.
• And Alice has said that if she does accidentally boil a bit too much water, she puts it in a thermos flask to keep it warm so it doesn’t require as much energy to boil again.

All great ideas – do you have anything else to add?

(A companion post to the one last October – super tips for reducing energy usage/heating bills in the winter!)

After a few false starts, summer is definitely here in the UK now and it’s the warmest it’s been for a few years (although that’s not saying much really). We’re not really equipped for very hot or very cold weather – because until we started messing with the climate, we didn’t regularly get either – but air con is now de rigueur in new workplaces and play places – offices, shops, cinemas etc. People are also increasingly buying small air con units for their homes but generally more people just run fans to keep air circulating — both of which, of course, use electric juice.

How do you keep yourself and your home/office cool? What are your favourite super tips for keeping cool without using a lot of energy or water? I’m expecting that everyone knows to stay well-hydrated and not wear thick woolly jumpers/scarves in the midday heat – but what else do you do?

Alice’s last “Reduce This” question is:

How to reduce the energy I use in cooking.

I’ve started putting any extra water I boil in the kettle into a thermos flask ready for the next cup of tea, but there must be loads of other ways to cut this down too.

We talked about ways to make the most out of boiled water back during our water week for World Water Day in March but I like this new focus on energy.

The biggest thing I think is using pan lids where possible – it amazes me how much less gas is needed to keep something at a rolling boil when there is a lid on the pan. I’d also recommend getting a range of pan sizes and using the most appropriate one for the task in hand particularly when boiling things in water – boiling eggs (which required a certain depth of water no matter what the diameter of the pan) being a prime example.

What have you tried? What works? What doesn’t?

Has anyone tried alternative cooking methods to cut down on fossil fuel use such as solar ovens?