Energy consumption in households
Data extracted in June 2024
Planned article update: June 2025
Highlights
In 2022, households represented 25.8% of final energy consumption, or 18.1% of gross inland energy consumption, in the EU
In 2022, natural gas accounted for 30.9% of the EU final energy consumption in households, electricity - 25.1%, renewables and wastes - 22.6%, oil & petroleum products - 10.9% and derived heat - 8.2%. A small proportion - 2.3% still used coal products (solid fossil fuels).
The main use of energy by households in the EU in 2022 was for heating their homes (63.5% of final energy consumption in the residential sector), with renewables accounting for more than a quarter (31.4%) of EU households space heating consumption
Source: Eurostat
(nrg_d_hhq)
Households use energy for various purposes: space and water heating, space cooling, cooking, lighting and electrical appliances and other end-uses (mainly covering uses of energy by households outside the dwellings themselves). Data on the energy consumption of households broken down by end-use, have been collected and published by Eurostat since 2017.
In 2022, households, or the residential sector, represented 25.8 % of final energy consumption or 18.1 % of gross inland energy consumption in the EU.
Full article
Energy products used in the residential sector
In 2022, most of the EU final energy consumption in the residential sector was covered by natural gas (30.9 %) and electricity (25.1 %). Renewables accounted for 22.6 %, followed by petroleum products (10.9 %) and derived heat (8.2 %). A small proportion was still covered by coal products (solid fossil fuels) (2.3 %), see Figure 1.
Source: Eurostat (nrg_bal_c)
In 2022, the Netherlands (66.20 %), Italy (49.84 %), Hungary (49.18 %) and Luxembourg (46.82 %) relied more than 45 % on natural gas for meeting their needs in the residential sector. Malta (75.64 %) and Sweden (49.48 %) mostly rely on electricity. Croatia (45.06 %), Slovenia (41.12 %) and Estonia (42.38 %) mainly use renewables and biofuels. Households in Ireland sourced 40.54 % of their energy from petroleum products, Polish households sourced 19.83 % of their energy from solid fossil fuels. Denmark relied mainly on derived heat, see Table 1.
Source: Eurostat (nrg_bal_c)
Energy consumption in households by type of end-use
For 2022, in the EU, the main use of energy by households was for heating homes (63.5 % of final energy consumption in the residential sector), see Table 2. Electricity used for lighting and most electrical appliances represented 13.9 % (this excludes the use of electricity for powering the main heating, cooling or cooking systems), while the proportion used for water heating was slightly higher, representing 14.9 %. Main cooking devices required 6.3 % of the energy used by households, while space cooling and other end-uses covered 0.6 % and 0.9 % respectively. Heating of space and water represented 78.4 % of the final energy consumed by households.
Source: Eurostat (nrg_d_hhq)
The lowest proportions of energy used for space heating were observed in Malta (21.4 %), Portugal (32.2 %) and Cyprus (39.6 %), and the highest in Luxembourg (79.2 %), Estonia (72.8 %), Hungary (71.9 %), Belgium (71.3 %) (see Table 3).
Source: Eurostat (nrg_d_hhq)
Use of energy products in households by purpose
As depicted in Figure 3 and in Table 2, electricity covers 100 % of the energy needs for lighting and space cooling in the EU but also 50.7 % for cooking (Table 6). Natural gas plays an essential role in terms of space and water heating of the energy consumed for these end-uses (respectively 36.3 % and 39.00 % Tables 4 and 5) and in cooking (32.8 %, Table 6). Renewables cover 31.4 % of the energy needs for space heating, 15.6 % for water heating and 3.8 % for cooking (Tables 4, 5 and 6). Derived heat plays an important role only in water heating (13.7 %, Table 5) and in space heating (9.7 %, Table 4). Oil product's energy use still cover 13.1 % of space heating energy use, 12.3 % of cooking and 11.1 % of water heating (Tables 4, 5 and 6).
Source: Eurostat (nrg_d_hhq)
Use of energy products in households: space heating
Five out of 27 EU Member States sourced more than 54 % of the energy needed for heating their homes from renewable energies. These were Portugal (88.56 %), Croatia (63.75 %), Bulgaria (61.69 %), Slovenia (56.40 %), Romania (54.22 %). The Netherlands (79.15 %), Hungary (56.86 %) and Italy (56.83 %) were the EU Member States where the proportion of gas used for space heating was the highest. Three Member states used mainly petroleum products for space heating: Cyprus (61.87nbsp;%), Ireland (53.63 %) and Greece (46.81 %). Finally, two Member States mostly relied on derived heat, Sweden (49.84 %) and Denmark (41.02 %), and one EU country (Poland) used mainly solid fuels for space heating (28.46 %) (see Table 4).
Source: Eurostat (nrg_d_hhq)
Use of energy products in households: water heating
Derived heat was widely used, covering more than 50 % of the needs, for water heating in four Member States, in Denmark (65.06 %), Estonia (60.47 %), Finland (56.04 %) and Sweden (55.82 %). Natural gas was used mostly in the Netherlands (88.08 %) and in Italy (58.43 %). In addition, Malta (87.82 %), Bulgaria (61.37 %), France (51.83 %), Croatia (45.97 %) used mostly electricity. Ireland and Portugal used mainly petroleum products (45.14 % and 38.88 % respectively), while Cyprus (78.51 %), Greece (49.77 %) used mostly renewables (see Table 5).
Source: Eurostat (nrg_d_hhq)
Use of energy products in households: cooking
Cooking was generally based on the use of electricity (more than 50 % of the needs in 14 Member States) and natural gas (more than 50 % in seven Member States) with only Malta and Cyprus using petroleum products for that purpose (74.35 % and 61.08 % respectively) (see Table 6).
Source: Eurostat (nrg_d_hhq)
Source data for tables and graphs
Data sources
The collection of data on energy consumption in households by type of end-use is based on the Regulation (EC) No 1099/2008 on energy statistics as amended by Commission Regulation (EU) No 2146/2019. The provision of historical series up to 2010 is made on a voluntary basis. Mandatory reporting starts with reference year 2015.
Context
Further disaggregation of the statistics on final energy consumption is crucial for policy makers to monitor and further develop energy policies. The first sector where this disaggregation was completed and implemented is the residential (or households) sector, followed by the industry sector. Detailed data of the final energy consumption in industry will be available from August 2022 (mandatory reporting starts with reference year 2020). Eurostat has established in the latest amendment of Regulation (EC) No 1099/2008 on Energy Statistics the breaking down of final energy consumption in other sectors, namely services and transport activities.
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