Looked at another way, our annual growth in energy use was a mere 0.3 percent over the three decades, yet the number of households increased 1.1 percent annually and total household floor space by 1.8 percent. This means that energy intensity per household declined by 24.2 percent and by household floor space by 43.1 percent.
So we have increased energy use more slowly than we’ve increased households. In fact, we improved energy efficiency enough to offset more than 70 percent of the growth in both the number of households and the size of the homes, according to EIA.
How did we decrease consumption and why? EIA says many factors influence how much energy we use, among them are energy prices, shifts in fuel sources, consumer preferences for increased comfort and entertainment options, and increasingly efficient technologies.
Over this time period we added more utility programs and consumer incentives to encourage energy efficiency, improved building codes, made electronics more efficient, created more residential appliance standards, and added more energy labeling.
So energy efficiency efforts are working; we’re reducing household consumption despite having more houses and bigger ones in the United States. At the same time, our homes are getting more comfortable, and we’re using more and more electric conveniences. This was the promise the energy sector offered when it made the transition away from conservation (sacrifice) to energy efficiency (better use of each unit of energy.) The promise is being fulfilled.
The full EIA report is here.
