Heating consumption per m2 | Heating energy consumption

Heating consumption per m² and per dwelling (with climatic corrections) has decreased since 2000 in EU MS thanks to the implementation of stricter building codes, combined with financial incentives to promote the thermal retrofitting of existing dwellings and the adoption of more efficient heating systems (e.g. gas condensing boilers, heat pumps, pellet boilers). The reduction in heating consumption per m² was 1.9%/year on average in the EU between 2000 and 2023. It was above 2%/year in 8 EU MS (The Netherlands, Ireland, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Latvia, France, Romania and Germany).
Since 2019, the decline in the heating consumption per m² has accelerated at EU level (-3.6%/year) and in 18 countries (by more than 5%/year in Slovakia, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, Latvia and Ireland. This is probably explained by the very steep price increase. For the other countries, the situation is quite diverse.
Significant differences between countries from less than 5 koe/m² in countries with warmer climate, such as Spain, Cyprus and Portugal to more than 12 koe/m² in Latvia, Czechia, Poland, Hungary, Croatia, Estonia and Romania, due to less efficient homes and space heating technologies and a large use of biomass.

Until 2010, the energy consumption per dwelling has generally decreased less than the energy consumption per m² because of an increase in the average size of dwellings (-1.6%/year over 2000-2010 at EU level for the consumption per dwelling vs -2.4%/year for the consumption per m², which means that the dwelling size has increased by 0.8%/year). This means that, until 2010, around 33% of the progress in energy efficiency for heating at EU level has been offset by the increase in dwelling size. This has been particularly important in the less developed Member States (e.g. Romania, Lithuania). This size effect has become negligible since 2010 at EU level and in the most developed MS as the average size of dwellings has remained almost stable. It is still significant in Eastern European countries, which had smaller dwellings.

Note: Energy consumption at normal climate.

Specific consumption of space heating increases as the central heating rate rises. However there are large differences between countries for high central heating rates: Sweden and Finland have the best performance among the EU countries well equipped with central heating, their specific consumptions for space heating are twice lower than that of Luxembourg.

Sectoral Profile - Households