The Morphy Richards Intelliboil Kettle is marketed as “heating water to precisely the temperature required to give you perfect tasting hot drinks”. The kettle can be set to one of three temperature settings (85º, 95 º and 100 º) depending on what you are drinking. Morphy Richards do not market the kettle as an eco-product. This is a 3kW quick boil kettle, which is the highest wattage for a kettle but fairly standard these days. However, because of its changeable temperature settings, quick boil facility and cup guidance, it has the benefits of saving energy and having higher carbon savings compared to a normal kettle.
Positives
- Boiling a kettle can add 1.29 kg to your carbon footprint. The average kettle uses 73kg of CO2 a year [1]. However with this kettle, you can reduce this by heating the water but not boiling it. You can alter the temperature setting so that the kettle doesn’t have to boil every time you make a cup of tea or coffee, therefore saving electricity and having a quicker ‘boil’ time.
- You can see how many cups you are filling the kettle with, so only boiling what you need. If everyone boiled only the water they needed each time they used the kettle, we could save enough electricity in a year to power the UK’s street lights for nearly seven months [2].
- You can see the temperature increasing on the digital gauge so you can switch the kettle off when it gets to the desired temperature, instead of letting it over boil.
- Kettles with raised heating elements can waste energy by boiling air when not filled with much water. The element at the bottom of this kettle is flat meaning that it will always be covered by water when boiling, thus saving energy.
Negatives
- I have found that one cup is equivalent to a small tea cup. I like large mugs of tea and so this is more like two cups in the kettle. However, I am still only boiling what I need, therefore reducing electricity usage.
- I have had my kettle for nine months and it is having a tendency to over boil. But, it is easy to switch the kettle off once it has reached the desired temperature as the temperature is digitally displayed on the top.
- This kettle makes a loud high pitched beeping sound when it has reached the desired temperature. Not so nice when you are still waking up in the morning! However, it does make you want to make more effort to switch the kettle off before it beeps, thus saving electricity and cutting down on over boil.
- A big downside to this kettle is that it is not very well insulated. The temperature drops quite quickly soon after boiling. However, the beeping noise does alert you when your kettle is boiled so you can make the most of the boiled water.
If you would like to purchase a specifically environmentally friendly kettle in the form of an ecokettle then take a look at our store. It is full of different gadgets and technologies you can use to save energy and reduce your carbon footprint.
References
[1] Carbon Footprint (2010) http://www.carbonfootprint.com/energyconsumption.html
[2] Energy Saving Trust (2010) http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/Home-improvements-and-products/Home-appliances/Kettles
