EU households used 9.54 million terajoules of energy in 2024, down slightly from 9.57 million terajoules in 2023.
Household energy use has fallen for three consecutive years after reaching a peak of 10.98 million terajoules in 2021, Eurostat informed on Wednesday.
Households — also referred to as the residential sector — accounted for 26.0% of the EU’s final energy consumption in 2024.
Final energy consumption refers to the energy used by end users such as households, industry and transport.
Natural gas made up the largest share of household energy use in 2024 at 29.4%, followed by electricity at 26.9%, and renewables and biofuels at 22.8%.
Heating dominated household energy use
Most household energy in 2024 went on space heating, which accounted for 61.5% of consumption, Eurostat said.
Water heating represented 15.6%, while lighting and electrical appliances accounted for 14.8%.
Cooking made up 6.4% of household energy use, while smaller shares went to other uses (0.9%) and space cooling (0.8%).
Energy used for space heating fell by 1.2% compared with 2023, while energy used for cooking dropped by 0.9%.
Over the same period, energy used for space cooling rose by 15.3% and for lighting and electrical appliances by 2.6%.
