One of the most important kitchen appliances to have in your home is the electric blender, often referred to as mixer-grinders. In this post, you will discover just how much power it consumes.
Major electronics companies are continuously making kitchen appliances more efficient so we can prepare our meals faster and healthier.
The electric blender is one of those nearly irreplaceable kitchen appliances that make the whole process of meal preparation convenient.
However, blenders come in different models, shapes, and power levels that often range between 200 to 1500 watts.
Basically, the higher a blender’s wattage, the more powerful it is, thus, the more electricity it consumes. How much power does an electric blender consume and how does it affect your electricity? Read on to learn more.
How Much Power Does an Electric Blender Use?
A regular electric blender uses around 0.4 kWh of electrical energy per hour. Thus, if you live in the US, for example, and you own a 400W blender, using it for one hour would cost you about 0.052 cents. (Note that the average price of electricity usage in the US is 13 cents.)
These days, we have blenders with power ratings from 200W to as high as 1500W. They come in varying models and their power is usually dependent on their purpose.
Weaker blender models are often intended for making basic stuff like fruit shakes while the stronger models are ideal for tougher items like nuts, ice, etc.
This is why it is very important to buy a blender that suits your needs. This way, you’ll avoid spending more energy than you actually need.
Blender Power And Why It is Important
An electric blender’s power is determined based on how the appliance can handle specific tasks such as meat grinding or ice crushing.
Thus, when it comes down to picking a blender, the most important criterion is its power. With a high-power blender, you can grind basically any type of food.
However, with a low-power one, you’ll have to carefully select what to blend which will mostly consist of soft and loose types of foods.
Trying to force a low-power blender to grind tough food items will cause the appliance to overheat and eventually break down.
If you intend to use the electric blender to grind mostly fruit purees, vegetables, or smoothies, a 500W model should be sufficient for the job.
On the other hand, for tougher tasks like chopping hard and frozen veggies or meat, you’ll want a blender that is above 500W for the job such as a 600W or 700W blender.
However, if you want something that can grind every grocery or food item, then you’ll want a professional electric blender with a power rating of 1000W or more.
How Many Watts Should a Decent Blender Have?
Perhaps, you’re not a professional chef but you don’t want a blender that won’t be able to handle the simple grinding tasks at home.
A decent blender with power between 500W and 800W should be sufficient for most households. Blenders within this range can comfortably handle frozen desserts, smoothies, and even grains and cereals.
But if you already own a blender with less than 300W of power, you’ll have to be careful in choosing what foods go into its jar.
If you use your blender very often, it will eat up more electricity and this means higher electricity bills. Electric blenders consume so much power because their motors need a lot of energy to function. Generally, blenders work by converting electrical energy into mechanical energy
Blender Power Usage Calculation
In case you’re wondering how to actually sum up the power consumption of your recently purchased electric blender, this section covers it.
The first thing you should do is look at the appliance’s pack or the label at the base or back of the blender.
On the appliance, you should see the blender’s power ratings which should appear as Voltage (V) and Watts (W) or Amperage (A).
With this data, you can find out the blender’s wattage using this formula; Watts (W) = Volts (V) x Amps (A). Do the following to get the exact power consumption value that the appliance uses in kWh:
- Express the capacity of your blender in watt
- Determine the number of hours that your blender was used in a day
To make things simpler, you can make use of this free electric blender energy calculator. All you have to do is input the wattage, cost per kWh, and hours of use.
The calculator can even show you the total energy consumption for your blender hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly.
Is 400W Good Enough for a Blender?
Basically, a 400W electric blender should be good enough if all you’re using it for is to make fruit smoothies like bananas, coconut milk eggs, yogurt, etc.
In essence, if you opt for a blender with a power rating of 400W, be sure to use it for only easily degradable food. Simply put, the appliance will struggle to grind foods like walnuts, apples, ice, etc.
Is Higher Watts Better for Blender?
This is wholly dependent on what you intend to use the blender for. Note that the power of a blender is gauged in watts.
Thus, the appliance is more powerful if the wattage is higher. So, if you want to specifically grind harder food items like frozen vegetables, frozen meat, ice, etc., you will need a blender with a higher wattage.
Last Words
An electric blender is a key part of any kitchen. Some of us use the appliance nearly every day. However, the food blender tends to use up a large amount of energy as we’ve discovered in this article.
This is why you need to know how much it can affect your electric bills at the end of the month if you own one.
Also, remember that the most important thing to consider if you plan on buying a blender is its power. A high-wattage blender will consume more electricity but will blend a lot more varieties of foods compared to a low-wattage one.
However, if you’re out to get a decent electric blender, then you should opt for those within the 500W to 800W range.
