Don’t Get Fried by Your Fryer

Dan Greenberg, Associate Director, E Source -- Foodservice Equipment & Supplies, 6/3/2008 10:44:00 AM

Advances in the design of deep-fat fryers in recent years have resulted in a broad range of efficiencies that restaurant owners and operators need to be aware of when purchasing new equipment. Energy Star, a joint program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy, has established a specification for the most efficient electric and gas units. According to the Department of Energy, each gas fryer that has achieved Energy Star status can save 50 million Btu per year, equivalent to about $580 using the 2007 average commercial price for natural gas. Electric fryers are inherently more efficient than gas ones, so savings available from Energy Star electric fryers aren’t quite so dramatic — about 930 kWh per year (equivalent to 3 million Btu), worth about $88 per year.

Analysis by the Consortium for Energy Efficiency indicates that foodservice operators will pay about $1,500 extra for a high-efficiency gas fryer compared to a standard one, and that the incremental cost for a higher-efficiency electric fryer is about $500. While higher-efficiency units will cost more, it’s also true that many utilities around the country offer rebates to encourage foodservice operators to make the more efficient choice. Where they exist, rebates for gas models range from $200 to as much as $1,000 in some utility service areas, and rebates for high-efficiency electric fryers are typically in the range of $150 to $200.

The amount of time it takes to pay off your investment in higher efficiency depends a lot on how you use your fryers, local electric and gas rates, and whether your local utility offers a rebate. To help you make the right decision, the Food Service Technology Center (a scientific testing facility for benchmarking the energy performance of equipment used in commercial kitchens that is funded by California utilities) offers life cycle cost evaluation tools for electric and gas fryers at http://www.fishnick.com/saveenergy/tools/calculators/efryercalc.php and http://www.fishnick.com/saveenergy/tools/calculators/gfryercalc.php, respectively. In order to use these calculators, foodservice operators or their suppliers will need to collect information about the fryer(s) under consideration. This includes:

• energy required to preheat the unit
• energy consumption when idle
• energy efficiency under full cooking load conditions and
• the fryer’s production capacity in pounds per hour

This information can usually be obtained from the vendor or manufacturer, or you can look it up on the Food Service Technology Center’s Fryer Performance Reports page at http://www.fishnick.com/publications/appliancereports/fryers/.