MIKE HARRISON’S letter regarding smart meters (Letters, October 30) demonstrates exactly why it is that smart meters are useful devices for helping us all to reduce energy waste and to save money in the home.

He declares that kettles are “low usage items”. He could not be more wrong. Most electric kettles have elements that draw 3,000 watts of power to heat up water.

Compare that to the power consumption of your average LED light bulb of three to five watts.

If your kettle boils for 30 seconds longer than it needs to, because of a faulty sensor for example or because you have overfilled it and are boiling water you don’t need, it will have consumed more electricity than all the lighting in your house over the course of a 24-hour period.

Repeat that several times a day and over the course of a year you will be wasting a very considerable sum.

Thankfully, we do not have to do the boring maths to find out whether our kettle or our ten-year-old freezer etc are wasting our money.

That is what smart meters are for and they can save you to up to and over £100 a year in energy bills.

Christian Vassie, Blake Court, Wheldrake, York