How Much Energy Is Enough? - The Renaissance of Renewable Energy - page 60

Sector EJ % of total energy consumption

Non-energy use 31.3 8.9

Source: IEA website ( www.iea.org ).

Home and Commercial Energy Use
In wealthier countries, access to electricity and fuels for heating, cooking and transport is
largely taken for granted, and a relatively small proportion of household income is spent
on energy, compared with accommodation, entertainment, education, and so on. By stark
contrast, amajority ofpeopleinAfricahavenoaccess toelectricity,and,likemanyinAsia,
rely mainly on biomass (wood and crop residues) and animal dung for cooking (WHO/
UNDP 2009 ). There are 1.3 billion people who lack access to electricity. Twice as many,
2.6billionpeople,lackaccesstomodernfuelssuchasnaturalgasandkerosene,andinstead
rely on traditional biomass use for cooking, causing harmful indoor air pollution (IEA
2012a ; United Nations 2007 ).

But even amongst the wealthier societies there are major differences in the way energy
is consumed in homes. The average European household consumes about 4,500
kilowatt-hours of electricity per year, whereas a household in Japan uses around 6,000
kilowatt-hours, and its American equivalent slightly more than 11,000 kilowatt-hours.
The reasons for this disparity include different housing patterns, consumption habits, and
attitudes towards energy use. The majority of the energy consumed in homes in wealthy
countries is used to heat or cool air. Lighting, water heating, refrigeration, washing, drying,
cooking and electronic devices account for the rest. While the energy demands of large
appliances and boilers have been reduced thanks to improved efficiency, these gains have
been more than offset by the adoption of numerous new appliances, such as personal
computers and mobile phones, and by the increased use of air-conditioning.
In terms of energy usage, there is not much difference between the domestic and
commercial energy sectors. In both cases, energy is primarily used to heat and cool
space, to provide lighting and to power electrical appliances. Not surprisingly, the bulk
of commercial energy consumption occurs in wealthy societies with large commercial
and service sectors. The service and commercial sectors in Japan and the United States
now consume almost as much energy as their respective industrial sectors. This also
reflects a global shift in industrial production to China and India, the world's emerging
manufacturing giants, where ten times more energy is used in industry than in commerce
(see Figure 3.6 ).