Energy used by EU households to cool their homes doubled between 2018 and 2024, reaching 80.4 thousand terajoules.
Households used 40.5 thousand terajoules for space cooling in 2018, according to figures from the EU’s statistics agency Eurostat.
Energy consumption for cooling rose each year over the period, except in 2020 and 2023, when it fell by 2.5% and 1.9% respectively compared with the previous year.
Italy recorded the highest total household energy use for space cooling in 2024 at 26.3 thousand terajoules, followed by Spain on 14.3 thousand and Greece on 11.9 thousand.
Cyprus and Malta had the highest shares of cooling use
Cyprus and Malta had the largest proportions of household energy used for space cooling in 2024, at 16.0% and 15.0% of final household energy consumption, Eurostat said.
Greece used 7.4% of household energy for cooling, while the shares were 2.5% in Spain and 2.3% in Italy.
