The EU economy used 56.1 million terajoules of net domestic energy in 2023, down 4.1% from 2022.
Businesses and governments accounted for 72.3% of that energy use for production activities, while households consumed the remaining 27.7%, Eurostat reported on Thursday.
Manufacturing made up the biggest share of the EU’s net domestic energy use at 14.3 million terajoules, or 25.5% of the total, followed by electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply at 10.1 million terajoules (17.9%) and transport and storage at 6.9 million terajoules (12.3%).
Electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply recorded the steepest year-on-year fall in energy use in 2023, down 8.7% compared with 2022, while manufacturing fell 5.5%.
Transport and storage was the only major economic activity to use more energy in 2023, rising 8.1% from the year before.
Country trends over the past decade
Energy use intensity of gross value added — a measure comparing energy use with the value produced by the economy — fell fastest between 2014 and 2023 in Estonia (-43.1%), Ireland (-42.8%) and the Netherlands (-37.2%).
Malta (+22.9%) and Lithuania (+9.3%) were the only EU countries to record an increase over the same period.
