Analyzing energy use
Many sources of energy are used in homes, businesses, industry, and power plants and to travel and transport goods. We divide energy use into five main energy-use sectors to help us understand how energy is used:
- The residential sector includes homes and apartments.
- The commercial sector includes offices, malls, stores, schools, hospitals, hotels, warehouses, restaurants, and places of worship and public assembly.
- The industrial sector includes facilities and equipment used for manufacturing, agriculture, mining, and construction.
- The transportation sector includes vehicles that transport people or goods, such as cars, trucks, buses, motorcycles, trains, aircraft, boats, barges, and ships.
- The electric power sector primarily generates and sells electricity and, in some cases, heat to the other energy-use sectors.
The electric power sector uses primary energy sources to generate electricity for sale to the four U.S. end-use sectors—residential, commercial, industrial, and transportation—and to Canada and Mexico. The four end-use sectors also consume primary energy. The end-use sectors also produce electricity for their own use, which in the industrial and commercial sectors is called direct use.
Total energy consumption by the end-use sectors includes their:
- Primary energy use
- Electricity sold by and purchased from the electric power sector
- Electrical system energy losses (energy conversion and other losses associated with the generation, transmission, and distribution of purchased electricity)
Each end-use sector’s share of total electrical system energy losses is calculated according to each sector's share of total annual electricity sales.
Historical U.S. energy consumption trends
Total annual U.S. energy consumption was the highest on record in 2007, at about 99 quadrillion British thermal units (quads). In 2020, U.S. energy use declined primarily because of economic responses to the COVID-19 pandemic that began in the United States during the spring of 2020. Before 2020, the largest recorded annual decrease in U.S. energy consumption occurred between 2008 and 2009, when consumption decreased by about 4.9% during the economic recession. Other large annual decreases in U.S. energy consumption occurred during economic recessions in the early 1980s and in 2001.
Total U.S. energy consumption per capita has decreased since the 1970s
Although total annual U.S. energy consumption and the U.S. population has increased over time, the amount of energy consumption per capita (per person) peaked in the late 1970s. Annual per capita energy consumption was relatively flat from the late-1980s through 2000 and has generally decreased each year since then. In 2020, U.S. per capita energy consumption dropped to its lowest since 1964, mainly because of economic responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2023, per capita energy consumption was about 4% higher than in 2020, but it was 3% lower than in 2022.
Factors contributing to lower U.S. energy consumption since the 1980s include:
- Increased efficiency of appliances, electrical equipment, and building insulation, largely because of energy efficiency standards and building energy codes
- Higher average fuel efficiency of vehicles due to Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards
- Financial incentives for energy efficiency investments
- Utility-scale electricity generation using higher efficiency natural gas-fired, combined-cycle and combined-heat-and-power plants
- Decreased production and manufacturing of metals and other energy-intensive-to-produce materials and products
- Larger population increases in warmer climate regions of the country than in colder climate regions, resulting in lower heating energy consumption and lower total residential and commercial sector energy consumption
U.S. energy consumption per dollar of GDP declined nearly every year since 1949s
Along with per capita energy consumption, another measure of energy consumption is how efficiently the economy uses energy to produce every dollar of gross domestic product (GDP). The amount of U.S. energy consumption per real 2017 dollar of GDP—the adjusted value to account for changes in the value of the U.S. dollar—declined in most years from 1949 through 2022. In 2023, energy use per dollar of GDP was 4% lower than in 2022. Although growth of U.S. energy consumption is closely tied to growth in GDP and other economic factors, it is partially offset by improvements in energy efficiency and other changes in the economy that result in lower energy use per unit of economic output. Many of the factors that contribute to lower per capita energy consumption also contribute to lower energy consumption per dollar of GDP.