Brits with rice cookers could be hit with charges of up to £25 from next month, according to calculations by The Express. Ofgem is lowering the energy price cap from that date, meaning Brits will pay less per year for their energy usage.

The energy authority has said that households on a standard variable tariff (default tariff) who pay for their electricity by Direct Debit will now pay on average 24.67 pence per kilowatt hour (kWh). A rice cooker is an electric kitchen device that boils or steams rice, with a removable inner bowl and a thermostat that ensures the rice cooks without burning. It is popular for its minimal-supervision requirement, which frees you up to prepare other parts of the meal or do something else altogether. According to Jackery, rice cookers use about 1.5kW of energy per hour. Cooking white rice takes 20 to 40 minutes and brown rice takes 40 to 60, so we’ll use an average time of 40 minutes.

But how expensive are these devices to use? We have done some calculations to help you figure out how much you can expect to pay if you use a rice cooker twice a week for 40 minutes both days.

Using the cooker for 40 minutes will use 0.66kWh. At the new Ofgem price of 24.67p per kilowatt hour, this will cost around 24p per usage.

At this same price, rice cookers will, on average, cost £25 per year to run after April 1. These prices can change depending on the cooker.

Here is a more detailed breakdown, based on a formula provided by energy experts Bluetti:

The wattage is multiplied by the hours used and divided by 1,000. This brings us to 0.9kWh. This, multiplied by the new average hourly cost, is 24.42p.

If you use your rice cooker for this amount of time twice a week throughout the year, multiply this single-use cost by two, and then by 52 (weeks in the year). This brings us to an annual price of £25.