U.S. Households Using Less Energy

Elizabeth La Jeunesse reports: "Although the number of U.S. households increased by about 4 percent between 2009 and 2015, total on-site energy usage in occupied U.S. homes declined by more than 10 percent, according to our analyses of survey results recently released by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)."

"Overall, while total households increased from 113.6 million in 2009 to 118.2 million in 2015, total site energy use by those households dropped by more than a quadrillion Btu, even as consumption increased among non-residential uses. As a result, the residential sector’s share of total U.S. energy consumption dropped from 22.4 percent in 2009 to 21.1 percent in 2015," adds La Jeunesse.

The article digs further into the data from the EIA, finding larger energy reductions in the multi-family housing sector, and breaking down reductions by the age of the building stock. The article also includes information about why and how energy use declined.